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Topics   BESS-Polar Experiment Received NASA Award   On April 16, Balloon-Borne Experiment With A Superconductiong Spectrometer (BESS) was honored with Astrophysics Science Division Award by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Japanese collaborators received the plaque, last month, July.   BESS-Polar experiment is formed with a joint collaboration in space science between the US and Japan. The member institutes are KEK, the University of Tokyo, Kobe University, ISAS, NASA/GSFC, University of Maryland and University of Denver. A superconducting spectrometer was launched by using in a series of NASA scientific balooning program in Antarctica. It circulated around the South Pole at an altitude range of 35 - 39 kilometers. The experiment has made precise measurement of low energy antiprotons and searched for antimatter nucleus in cosmic rays.   The group conducted the first balloon operation around the South Pole for eight and a half days, in 2004. The second operation in December 2007 to January 2008 lasted 30 days, circulating around the South Pole including the second circle, and has collected 4,700 millions of cosmic ray events including more than 8,000 events of low energy antiprotons.   NASA presented the 'Group Achievement Award to BESS Polar Team' for the development and highly successful 30-day Antarctic balloon flight of the BESS-Polar instrument, producing the world's best dataset on cosmic-antimatter.     [ Related Web Site ]   BESS http://bess.kek.jp/~masaya/bess/index.htm

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