Detector, Radiation, Geiger, Viking

Experimental Geiger tube similar to those flown on Viking sounding rockets. The pillbox-like shape was designed to allow these detectors to be stacked and flown as an array. These counters comprise a gas filled tube with a outer cathode and a short wire anode in the middle, hidden by the opaque entrance window, probably aluminum, that was designed to filter out all radiation less energetic than x-rays. Photons of energetic radiation that enter the tube will ionize the filling gas making it electrically conductive. This will cause a discharge to flow bewteen the anode and the cathode. This results in a countable electrical signal. This artifact is part of a collection of high energy detectors from the Naval Research Laboratory (see Catalogue#s 19880001000-19880017000). It was transferred to NASM in 1987.