2011 October 14
On the Canary island of La Palma there are a pair of MAGIC telescopes that capture air showers of high-energy particles that results from high energy gamma radiation/photons impacting the atmosphere! Of course these telescopes are not truely "magic", they are really quite scientific.These Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes were the collaborative effort of about 150 researchers from Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Finland, Bulgaria, Armenia and the United States. Today only MAGIC-I is the only one that is operational, but it stands as the largest gamma ray telescope we have! Most gamma ray detectors require the use of a ballon or satelite to get above the Earth's gamma-ray-absorbing-atmosphere; however, the MAGIC telescope uses this problem to its advantage, by making the atmosphere part of the detector! The radiation shower is picked up by the satelite by means of using Cerenkov light reflected from its mirror, detected in the focal plane by one or many photomultipliers, and then converted from optical signal into an electronic signal to record the gamma-ray event.
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