APR 28 1975
Liberal, KANS.
SOUTHWEST DAILY TIMES
D.8,900

Cosmic Ray Fallout Is Flashy

   SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) – When a cosmic ray ends its trillion mile trip through outer space by colliding with the earth’s atmosphere, the fallout flashed across the sky with all the intensity of a 100 watt light bulb.
   The shower of tiny particles cascades to the earth several miles below at nearly the speed of light, striking the ground 60- to 70-millionths of a second after the subatomic space traveler first crashed into an air molecule.
   A 100 watt light at more than 186,000 miles a second is dimmer than the stars or the glow of the night sky behind it – even in unpopulated and remote regions like the western Utah desert.
   But the Bonneville Salt Flats and similar spots far from urban civilization are the only places where physicists studying high energy particles and the origin of cosmic rays can get a glimpse of the collisions.
   A team of University of Utah scientists has received a National Science Foundation grant of $280,000 to start work on a unique astrophysics observatory located on the bone-white desert best known as an auto speedway.
   The observatory will consist of 80 dish shaped mirrors on the outside of a large geodesic dome. A dozen photo multiplier tubes, suspended over each mirror - about 1,000 over the entire structure - will be attached to a computer.
   The structure, which won't be finished for three to five years, is nicknamed "fly's eye" because of its resemblance to the compound eyes of a fly.