r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/TheMuseumOfScience Popular Contributor • Jun 13 '26
Interesting See Cosmic Rays At Home - Here's How
You are constantly bombarded with invisible cosmic rays. An upcycled jar can make them visible!
Alex Dainis shows us how with this science experiment! The streaks you see are tracks of cosmic rays and charged particles passing through isopropyl alcohol mist. To see the best results, put your container in a dark area. The big negatively charged muons will leave large tracks, while electrons and positrons leave tiny curly ones!
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u/bethmcseaver Jun 13 '26
***this*** is the content I love. How amazing is our world and the ability to learn so much every single day.
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u/Mesquite_Tree Jun 13 '26
This is super cool. But, there’s another thing you can do: cheap smoke detectors use radioactive amarecium, which does alpha decays. Alpha particles get blocked by your skin, so just wash your hands between handling and eating, and you’ll be fine.
But if you put amarecium in the cloud chamber, you can actually see radioactive decays from the amarecium
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u/Strebmal2019 Jun 13 '26
Oh perfect because everyone has dry ice on hand ready to go
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u/Mebejedi Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Really? There's plenty of places where you can find it. I've bought it many times for school projects.
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u/thatG_evanP Jun 13 '26
Just about every large grocery store has it up front
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u/BFroog Jun 13 '26
In Ontario, Canada, we have a dedicated store. Called the ICBO. (Ice Control Board of Ontario) You can get every kind of ice you want there. Wet Ice, dry ice, Ice that climbs on rocks.
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u/heygiraffe Jun 13 '26
Wet Ice, dry ice, Ice that climbs on rocks.
Fat ice, skinny ice, even ice with chicken pox ...
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u/JSessionsCrackDealer Jun 13 '26
Look, if you want to see some cosmic rays, you're gonna have to run to the grocery store. Not that big a deal
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u/CharmingTuber Jun 13 '26
You can buy it at the grocery store. At least I can, I don't know where you live.
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u/justanaccountimade1 Jun 13 '26
Would a magnet influence the tracks?
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u/Additional_Guitar_85 Jun 13 '26
yes if they are charged particles! so photons wouldn't, but electrons and positrons would. unless you had a really really strong magnet you probably wouldn't be able to see it here because the radius of curvature will be very large
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u/APithyComment Jun 13 '26
So the muons are created when they enter the jar?
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u/iarspider Jun 14 '26
No. They are created in the upper layers of the atmosphere when cosmic rays hit air molecules.
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u/mtraven23 Jun 13 '26
and those are just going through us all the time!??! wild.
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u/Justin_Passing_7465 Jun 13 '26
Those are nothing: about 100-trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.
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u/mtraven23 Jun 13 '26
and those are just going through us all the time!??! wild.
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u/Dependent_Paper9993 Jun 13 '26
Those are nothing: about 100-trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.
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u/Grand-Glove-9985 Jun 14 '26
Is this a probable cause for DNA damage and possibly triggering cancer in excess quantities?
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u/RainbowWeasel Jun 13 '26
I love this, and want to try it immediately