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School of Physical and Chemical Sciences

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  1. School of Physical and Chemical Sciences
  2. Engage
  3. Outreach
  4. In School
  5. Physics Activities
  6. Research in Schools
  7. Our Projects
  8. Catching Cosmic Rays

Catching Cosmic Rays

SCREAM posterThe Catching Cosmic Rays project concerns the unstable fundamental particles similar to electrons which are created by high energy particles from space bombarding the top-of-the-atmosphere. A MiniPIXEDU detector can be used to detect these particles and measure their properties. This project can result in research into a variety of topics such as the origin of cosmic rays, their interaction with matter, and special relativity.

Please note that we can only offer this project to a limited number of schools and it is only open to schools who have successfully undertaken a project with us previously.

Note that until 2025 this project was known as SCREAM (Scintillator Cosmic Ray Experiments into Atmospheric Muons). The name referred to the scintillator - photomultiplier tube particle detectors that we originally used. We now use MiniPIX for muon detection and the name was changed to reflect this.

MiniPIX resources and guides are available on the USB provided with your MiniPIX device and also in the teacher area — please contact us if you're unable to access.

Examples of previous work

Here are some of examples of high-quality work previously presented by students at our Research in Schools conference.

Posters: Poster 1 [PDF 1,106KB]  Poster 2 [PDF 691KB]  Poster 3 [PDF 549KB]
Talk: Talk 1 [PDF 1,316KB]  Talk 2 [PDF 857KB]

Project Lead

The Catching Cosmic Rays project is currently led by Dr Seth Zenz. It was previously led by Dr Linda Cremonesi, a UK Future Leaders Fellow and Reader in Particle Physics at QMUL, who worked on the NOvA and DUNE neutrino oscillation experiments. Before Linda took the project on, it was led by Dr Jeanne Wilson, who worked on the SNO+, T2K and proposed HyperK neutrino experiments.

 

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