Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) is a gamma-ray and cosmic-ray observatory in Daocheng, in the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China. It is designed to observe air showers triggered by gamma rays and cosmic rays.[1] The observatory is at an altitude of 4,410 metres (14,470 ft) above sea level.[2] Observations started in April 2019.[3]

The observatory covers an area of some 145 hectares (360 acres). It has three underground observing pools, each “more than triple the size of the Water Cube (National Aquatic Center) in Beijing”. One of the pools is designed to contain 100,000 tonnes (98,000 long tons; 110,000 short tons) of water. The pools will contain 12 telescopes to capture high-energy photons. Cherenkov radiation detectors are used. Research teams from Australia and Thailand will participate in the project directly, with others expressing interest.[4]

References
  1. Vernetto, S; LHAASO Collaboration (May 2016). "Gamma Ray Astronomy with LHAASO". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 718: 052043. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/718/5/052043. ISSN 1742-6588.
  2. Zhu, H.; Zhu, F. R.; Zhou, X. X.; Zhao, Y.; Zhang, X.; Zhang, S. S.; Zhang, M. F.; Zhang, L.; Zhang, B. (2019-05-07). "The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) Science White Paper". arXiv:1905.02773v1. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. Cyranoski, David (2019-05-08). "China's mountain observatory begins hunt for origins of cosmic rays". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01467-1.
  4. Chinese scientists' pursuit of cosmic rays opens windows on universe, [SpaceDaily.com], 2019-10-24


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