6. Rocket and satellite investigation of meteors

Extract

In the U.S.S.R. the study of cosmic rays by rockets was started in 1947. In the beginning, with the help of Geiger counters the number of charged particles was measured, and the formation of the electron-photon component in the interaction of primary particles of cosmic rays with nuclei of light elements was investigated. It was shown that in 1947,1948,1949 and 1951 the intensity of cosmic rays at altitudes up to 75 km was the same and did not change more than by 5 %. In 1949 the data on the photon intensities outside the atmosphere were obtained. In order to measure the number of high-energy photons, one of us (A. E. Chudakov) proposed a method permitting these measurements to be made with a strong background of charged particles.