Study of cosmic rays continues high upon Pitt’s iconic tower

The following first appeared in the Fall 2026 issue of Pitt Magazine as part of a collection of anecdotes, fun facts, figures and more - 42 of them in all, one for each of the Cathedral of Learning's 42 floors. The issue celebrated the centennial of the Cathedral's 1926 groundbreaking.

Cosmic rays are tiny high-energy particles emitted by some of the most energetic events in our universe, such as supernova explosions. Upon reaching Earth, they interact with the atmosphere, sometimes changing into muons, a heavier flavor of electron.

In the early 20th century, scientists only knew mysterious energy was interfering with their equipment. Some thought it came from the ground, others from the sky. In 1910, German priest and physicist Theodor Wulf took his electrometer and ascended the Eiffel Tower. The energy got stronger, suggesting cosmic origins.

In fall 2025, a team led by Yuvaraj Elangovan, an electronics design engineer at Pitt, lugged the backpack-sized Pitt-CoRTEx (Cosmic Ray Tracker Experiment) to the 35th floor of another tower: the Cathedral of Learning. The equipment was made by a group of undergraduates including Kyle Mo (A&S '26), Sean Maloney (A&S '26) and Brent Clelland (A&S '26), under the tutelage of professors Tae Min Hong and Pranava Teja Surukuchi, both in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The project received the Moon Shot award by the Dietrich Innovation Initiative, in collaboration with the David C. Frederick Honors College.

The goal was to recreate a safe, maintenance-free, small-scale replica of modern instrumentation to explain particle physics research to the public, while providing the students a hands-on experience. Using cutting-edge methods, modern materials and artificial intelligence, the detector tracked muons with a light array. The array flashed about once per second - each time a muon zipped by at near light speed.