TIGER (Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder), the University and NASA’s balloon-borne experiment, has completed a second successful flight from McMurdo Station in Antarctica to collect rare celestial atomic particles called cosmic rays. W. Robert Binns, Ph.D., research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and TIGER’s principal investigator — pictured here before the balloon’s Dec. 16 launch — was one of six members of WUSTL’s cosmic ray group in Antarctica, joining collaborators from California Institute of Technology and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The instrument floated for 18 days at 130,000 feet to measure the elemental abundances of galactic cosmic rays. TIGER carried two piggyback experiments, including one from Project Aria, the School of Engineering’s K-12 science and technology outreach program. TIGER was successfully brought down Jan. 4. Analysis of the data transmitted during the flight is under way. More pictures and information can be found online at cosray2.wustl.edu/tiger/index.html.
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