Auger Observatory — Animation

Animation of air shower detection in the Auger Engineering Array

The animation shows the development and detection of an extensive air shower in the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory Engineering Array.

• Shower particles travel at essentially the speed of light.
• They spread out from the shower axis in a thin "shower front." You can see curvature in the shape of this front.
• The moving rectangle is the "shower plane" that is tangent to the shower front at the shower axis.
• Green dots represent electrons and positrons. Red dots represent muons.
• Notice that the light detected in a water tank station depends on its distance from the shower axis. The tank closest to the core gets a much stronger signal than those that are far from the axis.
• The arrival direction is calculated from the shower front arrival times at the different water tank detectors.