ISS to gain two more cosmic-ray detectors

Science : Within a year, two smaller cosmic-ray experiments will join the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Calorimetric Electron Telescope is an international project to detect high-energy electrons. NASA’s Cosmic-Ray Energetics and Mass investigation will focus on high-energy atomic nuclei. The suite of experiments is expected to make the ISS a first-class cosmic-ray observatory, with the goal of investigating the mysterious particles, their potential origins, and their possible connection with dark matter. Such investigations may be bolstered even further in a few years when yet another detector, the Extreme Universe Space Observatory at the Japanese Experiment Module, gets added to the ISS in order to look down on Earth and study the showers of secondary particles created when cosmic rays impact its atmosphere.