The project based in Utah and Argentina that, when completed, will be the largest cosmic ray detection array ever built, is known as...The Pierre Auger Observatory (d). The Pierre Auger Observatory will have detectors spread out over a huge area (3000 km2) and will use both water Cerenkov detectors and photodiodes to detect flourescent light in the night sky. The Pierre Auger Observatory hopes to detect several hundred cosmic rays each year on the order of 1020 eV. They plan to build arrays in both Utah and Argentina to have observatories in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The MILAGRO project (a) detects high energy gamma rays and is associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Manhattan Project (b) was the project used to build the first atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project was indirectly connected to cosmic ray physics, since many early cosmic ray researchers either joined the project (eg Seth Neddermeyer, UW, discoverer of the muon) or were trained in the project (eg Robert Williams, UW prof. emeritus, who built the first extensive air shower array (EAS) detector in the USA).
The AMANDA project (c) is being constructed at the South Pole and once built, will detect high energy neutrinos. Detectors will be placed hundreds of feet under the ice to detect neutrinos!
Click here to see how energetic of a cosmic ray you are.
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