Particle Hunters
Become a Transglobal PARTICLE HUNTER!
Download and install the free “CREDO Detector” application, join the Transglobal Expedition virtual Team, and transform your ordinary smartphone into a cosmic ray particle detector!
Particle Hunters is a Citizen Science project created by CREDO, the Cosmic Ray Extremely Distributed Observatory. By taking part in the competition, you join the world’s largest detector for cosmic radiation and help scientists study the early universe.
How does this work?
You will have to blind the phone’s camera, for the application to monitor images created in the dark, bright pixels that match the passage of cosmic radiation. The image, along with the time and location of the smartphone, is automatically sent to the CREDO global database.
You will have to blind the phone’s camera, for the application to monitor images created in the dark, bright pixels that match the passage of cosmic radiation. The image, along with the time and location of the smartphone, is automatically sent to the CREDO global database.
| Become a Particle Hunter |
Why hunt cosmic rays?
The Science In our understanding of the Universe, one mystery remains; 95% of the universe is invisible to us, an unknown mix “dark matter” and “dark energy” which we know exist because of a variety of otherwise unexplained phenomena, for example the way in which galaxies rotate.
The Science In our understanding of the Universe, one mystery remains; 95% of the universe is invisible to us, an unknown mix “dark matter” and “dark energy” which we know exist because of a variety of otherwise unexplained phenomena, for example the way in which galaxies rotate.
What could dark matter be?
It could be “super-massive particles” born in the early Universe. If so, we should be able to see the product of their decay, very high energy photons that, interacting with the atmosphere, create “super-preshowers” of low energy particles, Something we could detect … if we had a detector the size of the Earth!
It could be “super-massive particles” born in the early Universe. If so, we should be able to see the product of their decay, very high energy photons that, interacting with the atmosphere, create “super-preshowers” of low energy particles, Something we could detect … if we had a detector the size of the Earth!
Particles in a super-preshower” in fact are spread far apart, and we would need to detect each one of them. Alas, existing observatories cover only a teeny tiny fraction of the Earth's surface.
CREDO is trying to simulate a huge detector by connecting a network of lots and lots of little detectors spread out across the Earth's surface taking data at the same time: peoples’ smartphones!
CREDO is trying to simulate a huge detector by connecting a network of lots and lots of little detectors spread out across the Earth's surface taking data at the same time: peoples’ smartphones!
The collected data also contribute to test hypotheses about the quantum structure of spacetime, the potential relationships between cosmic radiation and earthquakes, and even the role played by high energy cosmic rays in cancer.
The idea of CREDO was first presented by NASA on 2016. At present the CREDO Observatory is composed of more than 50 institutional entities from 20 countries on 5 continents.
| Learn more about CREDO’s science |