'Cosmic opera' set for Paris towerThe rooftop of a Paris skyscraper is to be transformed into a cosmic-ray laboratory in an unusual week-long experiment due to start on Saturday. Every time a detector on top of the the 210-metre (689-feet) Montparnasse Tower picks up a sub-atomic particle called a muon muon (my `ŏn), elementary particle heavier than an electron but lighter than other particles having nonzero rest mass. , a pulse of laser light will flash across the sky of the city's Latin Quarter Latin Quartersection of Paris on left bank of the Seine; home of students, artists, and writers. [Fr. Culture: EB, VI: 71–72] See : Bohemianism from the Paris Observatory The Paris Observatory (in French, Observatoire de Paris or Observatoire de Paris-Meudon . Muons are debris from protons that are blasted out from the Sun or beyond our Solar System solar system, the sun and the surrounding planets, natural satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets that are bound by its gravity. The sun is by far the most massive part of the solar system, containing almost 99.9% of the system's total mass. and constantly bombard bom·bard tr.v. bom·bard·ed, bom·bard·ing, bom·bards 1. To attack with bombs, shells, or missiles. 2. To assail persistently, as with requests. See Synonyms at attack, barrage2. 3. the Earth. The protons smash apart when they collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere. Their short-lived remains shoot down to the planet's surface at nearly the speed of light. The so-called "cosmic opera" seeks to inform the public about cosmic particles and pay tribute to an experiment into the phenomenon, conducted at the top of the Eiffel Tower in 1910 by a German physicist, Theodor Wulf.
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