Study of Secondary Cosmic Rays and Astronomical X-Ray Sources using Small Stratospheric Balloons

Abstract

The X-ray sources of the universe are extraterrestrial in nature which emit X-ray photons. The closest strong X-ray source is the Sun, which is followed by various compact sources such as neutron stars, black holes, the Crab pulsar, etc. In this paper, we analyze the data received from several low-cost lightweight meteorological balloon-borne missions launched by the Indian Centre for Space Physics. Our main interest is to study the variation of the vertical intensity of secondary cosmic rays, the detection of strong X-ray sources, and their spectra in the energy band of ∼10–80 keV during the complete flights. Due to the lack of an onboard pointing system, low exposure time, achieving a maximum altitude of only ∼42 km, and freely rotating the payload about its axis, we modeled the background radiation flux for the X-ray detector using physical assumptions. We also present the source detection method, observation of the pulsation of the Crab (∼33 Hz), and spectra of some sources such as the quiet Sun and the Crab pulsar.