Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

But cosmic rays may provide even more fascinating information about the fabric of the universe itself.

An experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, AMS, has recently been installed on board the International Space Station, containing several detectors that can separately measure a cosmic ray particle's velocity, trajectory, radiation, mass, and energy, as well as whether the particle is matter or antimatter.

While the two are normally indistinguishable, their opposite charges enable them to be detected with the help of a magnet.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is currently measuring 50 million particles per day, with information about each particle being sent in real time from the space station to the AMS control room at CERN.

Over the upcoming months and years, it's expected to yield both amazing and useful information about antimatter, the possible existence of dark matter, and even possible ways to mitigate the effects of cosmic radiation on space travel.

As we stay tuned for new discoveries, look to the sky on a clear night, and you may see the International Space Station, where the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer receives the tiny messengers that carry cosmic secrets.

So your decaf oat milk, extra but not piping hot, four pumps of caramel, no sugar, small latte in a large cup.

That will be 10 minutes.

Um, but there's also scientific instruments up there.

Uh, one of them is called AMS, uh, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

It's, it's doing really, really interesting research on these things called cosmic rays, uh, from the space station.

So they're also working to improve that instrument before the end of the life of the space station.

All right, and Edna, starting from Luca, if you guys can come up in 10 to 20 seconds max, your favorite experiment, why, and why it's so good.

It's always hard to pick one, but if I had to, I would choose AMS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

And the reason why is that even though as an astrophysics experiment, it does not take sexy pictures that everybody loves, it's actually showing us how the universe works.

With pictures, we can see the end result of things that happen in the universe.

And subsequent studies using far more advanced equipment like the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope confirmed it.

Even the AMSO2 detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which has been mounted on the outside of the International Space Station since 2011, specifically searching cosmic rays for heavy antihelium nuclei, has found absolutely nothing confirmed after more than a decade of searching.

The antimatter is truly gone.

We didn't hide it.

We absolutely are

There are instruments like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer installed on the outside of the International Space Station currently sifting through millions of cosmic rays, actively hunting for the physical signature of a strangelet

The challenge, of course, is distinguishing a microscopic droplet of strange matter from a standard cosmic ray, like a high-energy helium or iron nucleus zipping by

Because they're both just flying through space

Mm-hmm.

We're also looking at the AMS device, so Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Don't quote me on that.

You have it.