2018
2018/08/26 - NYUAD students won the UAE Space Agency's MiniSat Competition.
After an internship studying Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes (TGFs) in Gran Sasso, Italy, two NYUAD students decided to continue their research in the field and bring it to the UAE. They proposed that TGFs can be detected by detectors small enough to fit inside of a CubeSat. A prototype detector for TGFs was built here in the Astroparticle Physics Lab as a proof of concept, and it was entered into the UAE Mini Satellite Challenge, where it won a chance to be sent to space to detect TGFs produced alongside lightning.
Following the winning of the competition, the project became a collaboration between NYUAD and Khalifa University where NYUAD will work on the payload, while KU will work on the CubeSat Bus System.
Read more about the CubeSat here.
2018/03/18 - Saadiyat Island: A Measurement of the Muon Flux at Sea Level
The Astroparticle Lab put quite a significant effort into the design, building, and characterization of the muon telescope detector over the last couple of years. Today marked the time to perform a scientific measurement. The goal is to provide the absolute muon flux angular distributions at sea level (Abu Dhabi latitude).
The system is completely standalone; it requires electricity only. To avoid “the shadow” of buildings, the lab decided to operate the muon detector outside, and they bought a power generator with a few gallons of petrol. The lab will run the detector for 72 hours and will require more than 2 millions of muon tracks.
2018/03/12 - Ms. Shelby White Visits the Astroparticle Lab
The Astroparticle Lab was pleased to welcome Ms. Shelby White and her crew to their lab and discuss the various research activities of the lab. Ms. White is the Founding Trustee of the Leon Levy Foundation, which was created from the estate of her late husband, who died in 2003. Its largest program, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, is a center for advanced research and graduate education at New York University established in 2007. The Foundation also supports organizations in the arts and humanities, nature and gardens, neuroscience research, human rights and Jewish culture (more information available here: http://leonlevyfoundation.org).
The discussion was naturally driven by ” what Physicists can do for Art?”.
The Astroparticle Lab's response is that they can offer techniques and instruments. For example, the XRF Scanner in the lab is one of the most promising: a stand-alone and portable system to provide non-destructive elemental surface analysis of an artifact is a terrific asset for Arts and Cultural Heritage. Needless to say, this definitely got their interest.
It was an honor for everyone in the lab to meet and talk to Ms. White.
2018/02/02 - Professor Auke-Pieter Colijn’s NYUAD Visit
Prof. Auke-Pieter Colijn, of NIKHEF, Netherlands, visited the Astroparticle Lab from February 2-3, 2018 to work together with Dr. Marcello Messina on the Technical Design Report of the XENONnT detector. Both Dr. Messina and Prof. Colijn are Technical Coordinators of XENONnT.
