Cosmic rays are energetic, subatomic particles constantly bombard the Earth’s atmosphere from all directions. Nowadays, new technological solutions are investigated by scientists to improve their knowledge in this field.

Cosmic Hunter is a new educational tool through which CAEN wants to inspire young students and guide them towards the analysis and comprehension of cosmic rays. Cosmic Hunter, Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPM) based, is composed of one detection – coincidence unit together with up to three plastic scintillating tiles.

Muons detections, flux estimation, shower detection and more are allowed thanks to a flexible system geometry.

What’s inside

• Two Detection Systems are included in the Cosmic Hunter. The Detection System consists of a plastic scintillator, a photodetector, and a small front-end electronic boards. The charged particles that pass through the unit deposit part of their energy inside the scintillators, producing a light signal. The light produced in the scintillator is then collected and converted into an electrical signal via a photosensor unit.

• The Coincidence Module provides information about the device status and coincidence counts. The module hosts an esp32-based microcontroller, “DOIT Esp32 DevKit v1”, which allows the user to select the events to count: either the signals coming from only one scintillating tile or the coincidence signals between the two tiles. The number of events acquired is shown in real-time on the display, together with the related information about the measurement in progress.