"German researchers are of the dark matter on the track"

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For today's launch of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station, said the coordinator of the federal government for the aerospace and Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Peter Hintze: "Today, on 29 April 2011 clock at 21:47 (GMT) started with the second last NASA shuttle mission, the Space Shuttle Endeavour , STS-134's flight to the International Space Station. Also on board is the "Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a detector to measure the cosmic radiation of space. AMS is an external platform of the ISS with precision measurements of the components of cosmic radiation and to register, among others, demonstrate the existence of antimatter, and fingerprint of the unknown dark matter provide one. "

Hintze underlines the importance of the large international project.. "Series provides us the key to understanding the universe we review the basic laws and theories of science to the discovery of entirely new phenomena we create technological innovations that serve as a source of economic value creation and our social development .

The AMS was developed under the leadership of the American Nobel laureate Professor Samuel Ting and with strong participation of Professor Stefan Schael from RWTH Aachen and the University of Karlsruhe from 500 scientists from 16 countries in the European nuclear research center CERN in Geneva and built.

Hintze. "The AMS is an outstanding example of the high efficiency of German physicist and for successful international cooperation at the cutting edge space projects such as the 1.5 billion euro project AMS are too complex for an individual approach of excellence German space research is recognized worldwide. , and it also makes its share of AMS. "Space Science Made in Germany" is a showcase of our national research activities. Germany can be proud of leading researchers such as Professor Schael. "

To get to the mystery of dark matter on the trail, the spectrometer identified AMS various kinds of particles on the determination of their charge and mass and measure their energy spectrum. The core of the four-square-foot, seven-ton apparatus is a strong magnet in the center. The particles in the magnetic field deflected describe a curved path, which is measured with track detectors. One of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen monitors developed and built laser system, the stability of this track detectors. The magnet is surrounded by a further RWTH Development: the so-called anti-coincidence counter that measures the deviation and prevents side distort incoming particles the results.In particular, Germany is contributing to the transition radiation detector ("Transition Radiation Detector TRD) to distinguish the different types of elementary particles from one another. The data provided by the TRD will be recorded by a detection system that was developed at the University of Karlsruhe and built.

The German contributions to AMS are supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi), following a decision of the German Bundestag.