The Particle Barrier

Abstract

The Earth’s atmosphere does not resist only the passage of electromagnetic radiation — or, at least, the passage of this radiation in undisturbed form. It also resists, through its density and especially through its electromagnetic properties, the more or less energetic particles that approach the Earth from space, and principally from the Sun. In particular, it resists the passage of the so-called ‘primary cosmic rays’ — consisting of charged or neutral particles — and, in a quite different way, the passage of meteorites (see Chapter VI).