One of the most exciting scientific instruments ever built

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is due to be launched on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on flight STS-134 this July. This will be the biggest scientific instrument to be installed on the International Space Station.

Whilst reading the ESA news article about this instrument I was quite taken aback by the claim that it's: One of the most exciting scientific instruments ever built The instrument is currently in the ESA’s research and technology centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands and is undergoing extensive testing, when the tests are complete it'll be flown over to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida by the US Air Force.

What's facinating about this insturment is the fact it's intended use is to explore the origin and structure of the Universe by observing 'antimatter' and 'dark matter' they claim the AMS will be looking for an abundance of positrons and electrons from space, one of the possible markers for dark matter, As a byproduct, AMS will gather a lot of other information from cosmic radiation sources such as stars and galaxies millions of light years from our home galaxy.

AMS will help scientists to understand better the fundamental issues on the origin and structure of the Universe by observing 'antimatter' and 'dark matter'. As a by-product, AMS will gather a lot of other information from cosmic radiation sources such as stars and galaxies millions of light years from our home galaxy. Not only astronomers, but also particle physicists are waiting for AMS data.

There is a good article about the (AMS) and it's current testing on the ESA's news, I must be honest and say until I'd read this news article today I'd never even heard of the AMS, I thought I'd bring this to the attention of ATS as I can't find any reference to The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer at all on the site.




Source

It's refreshing to hear about this new scientific instrument that, on the surface at least, doesn't appear to offer any opportunities for malevolent use.

Should be interesting to see what kind of information it will yield once it is put into use.

reply to post by GoneGrey



Hi GoneGrey, yes it is going to be interesting to see what it comes up with, their saying it will be able give us "information from cosmic radiation sources such as stars and galaxies millions of light years from our home galaxy" This alone will be beneficial to us, and if they are able give us a better understanding to origin and structure of the Universe (a topic that is still open for debate) through this instrument all the better, it will be a great achievement if they are able to pin point dark matter, as far as I'm aware dark matter has been discovered (all be it a couple of particles) and it's said to make up 90% of the universe, but they have yet to prove that, so this instrument could pave the way for massive scientific discoveries!

As far as it's use for nefarious purposes goes I wouldn't know, but you can bet ya ass if it did have the opportunity for malevolent use, we wouldn't find out about it

Dark Matter discovered





[edit on 18-2-2010 by Majestic RNA]

Great find!

Perhaps they are looking for more than just scientific data. Perhaps the device will search for energy signatures, as well.

reply to post by Copperflower



Hi Copperflower, I'm not sure if it's able to pick up energy signatures? (I presume you mean from UFO's) but it can certainly pick up cosmic radiation sources, so if say a UFO had made use of the type of radiation it's capable of reading, I don't see why it couldn't be used for this purpose.. It's stretching it a bit, (I don't think it's designed for UFO hunting, but who knows? if you think about it, with the onboard scientific instruments it has the use of, the results of them alone will be fascinating!

Originally posted by GoneGrey
It's refreshing to hear about this new scientific instrument that, on the surface at least, doesn't appear to offer any opportunities for malevolent use.

Should be interesting to see what kind of information it will yield once it is put into use.

Maybe they are really using it to locate enough antimatter to build a bomb capable of destroying alien spacecraft that we will be fighting in our next war! Yupp! I B jokin 2!

[edit on 18-2-2010 by butcherguy]

reply to post by butcherguy



Heh, that or anti-matter for use as propulsion for our off world spacecraft, the ones Gary McKinnon says the "Non-Terrestrial Officers" pilot

I is joking ....

Gary Mckinnon

I’ve just been looking at the AMS homepage, some interesting stuff on there! I can’t wait for this to be up and running!! Let’s hope they get the results their after with this instrument!

In general, AMS is trying to study the sources of cosmic rays. These sources include ordinary things like stars and supernovae, as well as (perhaps!) exotica like quark stars, dark-matter annihilations, and galaxies made entirely of antimatter.

Dark-matter annihilations… wow!


AMS homepage

i'm sure they've planned to deploy AMS on the ISS for quite some time now, i just can't help but feel bemused/excited/weirded out/apprehensive at the timeline of recent launches. they deployed WISE, which will scan space in the infrared spectrum, less than two months ago.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will scan the entire sky in infrared light, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images. The mission will uncover objects never seen before, including the coolest stars, the universe's most luminous galaxies and some of the darkest near-Earth asteroids and comets.

WISE Mission Overview

and now they're set to launch this AMS in a couple of months... i guess what i'm trying to say here is that it looks to me like these scientific platforms/detection apparatus can be used to detect objects that are relatively close to our solar neighborhood. what do you guys think the repercussions will be if ever these instruments detect something (an invisible heat/radiation source) beyond pluto? or is that the whole point of deploying these instruments in space?

reply to post by toreishi


Hi toreishi, Yes they have had the manifest planned for some time, I just didn’t take any notice of what was going up to the ISS to be honest I guess they’re in the last stages of finishing off the ISS so need to get all the instruments up there before the Shuttles are retired, with WISE, Expose E, and the AMS in amongst others fitted they have some awesome scientific instruments up there, I eagerly await the results of these experiments.

It’s quite an exciting time for space exploration, I’m glad I live in this century where we are just really starting to venture out and experimenting in space and our solar system, let’s see what we discover in the next ten years!

NASA manifest

Expose E


The repercussions if ever these instruments did detect something?, an invisible heat/radiation source ect???? I don’t really know??, I guess it depends on what they find, there could well be objects we know nothing of out past Pluto’s orbit, let’s hope they don’t find a planet sized object out there, I can hear the Nibiru believers saying “I told you so” already