Discovering Cosmic Ray Muons at Letchworth State Park: Revealing “Invisible” Nature

We set out to inspire visitors to a state park known for its sweeping vistas to engage with the beauty of the subatomic world that is also present in these views, but invisible to the naked eye. To accomplish this, we built muon detectors using open source plans from the CosmicWatch project at MIT. These detectors emitted a flash of light upon detection of a muon while recording and displaying the cumulative count of events. These detectors were deployed to high-traffic locations at Letchworth State Park in Western New York for 3 months in the Summer of 2020, accompanied by informational signage and links to a website we constructed. This site hosted more information about muons targeted at visitors with a range of different backgrounds as well as links to additional resources and an informational outreach video we created. The video described the entire project and also included muon detections from a mile high in a hot air balloon and from the depths of a local mine, recreating historical measurements that shaped our understanding of cosmic rays. We will describe the goals, implementation and impacts of this project.