muons and telescopes

LKD_

Ref: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-...y-physics.html

After finishing the article, I wondered, can't this principle be used to understand the universe better? Could we not make a muon telescope and learn some interesting things about emissions in space?

Drakkith

The just found out this information. Give them some time and I'm sure they will have some more instruments dedicated to this.

zhermes

Lots of telescopes look for and detect muons. Actually, every cosmic-ray telescope does (to my knowledge), generally via Cherenkov Radiation.

Diagram
Veritas
Milagro
Etc.

LKD_

Interesting. Is there a valuable difference between x-rays or gamma rays and muons? Or is the information unhelpful?

ibysaiyan

As far as my minuscule knowledge goes muons are leptons essentially mesons like electrons with half integer spin ( particles) where as X-ray/Gamma rays are electro magnetic radiation i.e energy released in between electron shuffling or energy released in the decaying of neutral pions,particle-anti particle annihilation.Someone with more in depth knowledge (in particle physics) may correct me if I am mistaken.Perhaps it's their mean life which is puzzling us ,as underlined in the link you posted.


Regards,
ibysaiyan