Happy International Cosmic Day

International Cosmic Day takes place for the sixth time on 30 November with high-school students from around the world investigating cosmic rays

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Happy International Cosmic Day

This map shows the worldwide participants of International Cosmic Day 2017, more detail here: https://icd.desy.de/e25775/ (Image: DESY)

Today, International Cosmic Day takes place for the sixth time. High-school students from around the world are investigating cosmic rays, discussing their results with scientists and working like a scientific international collaboration. 

Cosmic rays are everywhere, they fly through the atmosphere and our bodies unnoticed. Previously their detection and analysis was the exclusive domain of high-energy physicists with large detectors. Now, low-cost detectors are available for high-schools and each detector can be networked to create a giant cosmic ray telescope.

Research institutions worldwide are opening their doors to offer these young people a chance to research astroparticle physics. The event is initiated by the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in cooperation with Netzwerk Teilchenwelt in Germany and the research centre Fermilab with its teachers' network QuarkNet in the US, as well as a number of national partners. More than 60 groups of young people in 17 countries around the world are participating.

One of the national partners for International Cosmic Day is EEE from Italy, in this video, Professor Antonino Zichichi explains more about cosmic rays and their importance (Video: Christoph M. Madsen/CERN)

For more information about International Cosmic Day see https://icd.desy.de/

If you are a high-school student or teacher, find out how you could win a cosmic ray detector by entering CERN’s beamline for schools competition: http://beamline-for-schools.web.cern.ch/