Latitudinal variation in cosmic rays is a good
research project with the use of the cosmic telescopes built this week
at IU QuarkNet. Other experiments have been done, mostly in South America,
and they showed that equatorial areas receive more cosmic rays than the
poles by an astronomical amount. The farther away from the equator, the
less the cosmic rays.
For the IU QuarkNet schools, between Bloomington
and Elkart is approximately 1 degree of latitude difference. Another university
from Florida (FSU) has a QuarkNet collaboration which are also building
cosmic ray telescopes. If IU QuarkNet and FSU QuarkNet collaborated together,
we could see in approximately 10 degrees of latitude difference in our
data. It would also be a great experience and great collaboration for QuarkNet.
We could also collaborate on other experiments involving cloud cover, daily
cycles and seasonal cycles, etc.
update: July 2, 2001
AR