The GRAPES-3 observatory: A sensitive probe in high-energy astroparticle physics.

"The GRAPES-3 observatory is a growing collaboration of 14 institutions from India and Japan. The GRAPES-3 is spread over an area of 30000 m^2 in Ooty, and comprises of 400 scintillators to detect cosmic-ray showers, and proportional counters to detect muons in them. The high sensitivity of GRAPES-3 due to a unique combination of high angular resolution, large area, and high statistics data have made the recent discovery of  “The crack in the Earth’s magnetic shield” possible through the detection of a 2 hour muon burst.

This discovery has attracted unprecedented world-wide attention of the scientific community, and popular media. We would briefly summarise the efforts of the  team that was responsible for detecting this exciting phenomenon. Many of the characteristics of the burst could be explained in a fairly straightforward manner. However, there are a few remaining questions that will require a significant effort in future, and their resolution is likely to shed light on the interesting  phenomenon of magnetic reconnection in plasma. We would conclude by listing some of the other exciting areas where GRAPES-3 is likely to contribute to major advances in astroparticle physics. "