Cosmic rays will present within the gallery as random pulses of flashing light.

The origin of these rays that are ever present, originate in neutron stars, black holes and from the sun. These massless particle waves pass through everything on their journey through the cosmos into a cloud of unknowing. Muons are the offspring of the cosmic rays that bombard our atmosphere from deep space. Produced after colliding with the ionosphere they are a form of radiation that while passing through affects life on earth and at the same time has been the cause for much scientific speculation. Cosmic rays are thought to have profoundly shaped life by influencing chirality, or handedness in molecules. Most substances relevant to biology are chiral such as carbohydrates, amino acids and proteins.

The Gieger Muller design of the electronics samples the background radiation against a spike that each ray is producing as it passes through the detector. The detector is hooked up to flash units establishing a pulsing light event each time a muon strikes the detector.

Space is filled with cosmic rays — tiny fragments of atoms — all with varying amounts of energies. Many of the low or medium-energy ones are thought to originate from within our galaxy, likely from supernovae, or exploding stars, which hurl high-speed particles out into space when they die. Then there are what are considered ultra-high-energy cosmic rays: particles with energies

millions of times greater than any particle ever observed on Earth. These types of rays are puzzling, mostly because no one is quite sure what is causing the particles to get so energetic. For us, the pulses that crack like lightning as the muons strike the detectors have always felt like a sign of a ‘sombre precursor’, a broadcast transmission from far away that precedes, configurates life and also surpasses everything.