Today, on 22 November, the 11th International Cosmic Day (ICD) will take place. This day is dedicated to the unnoticed cosmic particles that flood our universe and constantly surround us on Earth.

On the International Cosmic Day, schools, universities and research institutions in more than 90 groups in over 20 countries enable young people all over the world to come together to learn more about these particles from the cosmos, to explore them and to exchange their newly acquired knowledge in joint video conferences. Last year, more than 6800 young people took advantage of this opportunity. They are supported and guided by scientists and teachers.The young people deal with the exciting questions of astroparticle physics, carry out measurements of cosmic muons and network all over the world. Afterwards, they document their results in a joint publication. The joint work shows how international cooperation works and how science functions as a unifying element beyond national borders, language barriers and cultural differences.

"The young people slip into the role of a researcher for a day and experience first-hand how science works," explains Carolin Gnebner, scientific coordinator of the astroparticle projects for young people at DESY in Zeuthen and nationwide in the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt network.

DESY in Zeuthen is initiating and coordinating the ICD for the eleventh time with a team of scientists, students and event experts.

A special guest and supporter of this year's Cosmic Day is Rebecca Smethurst, astrophysicist at Oxford University, known on YouTube as Dr Becky (https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBecky). On her YouTube channel she posts videos in which she explains astrophysical topics in an entertaining and lively way. She has received several awards from renowned institutions.. She will open this year's ICD.

Another special feature this year is the online masterclass for Ukrainian students in Ukrainian. This is being held in cooperation with the organisation Astrosandboxers (https://www.astrosandbox.com/mainenglish) and young scientists at DESY in Zeuthen.

In the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt Network, a wide range of events take place within the framework of the ICD at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Technische Universität Dresden, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and at schools in Duisburg, Cologne and Wildau.

For this year's day, the ICD team at DESY in Zeuthen has once again come up with some additional activities for anyone who wants to spontaneously join in on the day (https://icd.desy.de/activities), including a quiz on astroparticle physics. Those interested can follow the drawing and selfie competition on social media under the hashtag #internationalcosmicday and also upload their own contributions.

Those who do not live near a venue can also participate as a class without conducting their own experiments. The Cosmic@Web website, specially developed by DESY for school projects, provides data from long-term experiments and tools for evaluation. As is usual in astroparticle physics, the experiment only has to be built once and all participating researchers have access to the data and can pursue their own research topics. "We are very pleased that Cosmic@Web gives young people around the world the chance to work like scientists," explains Gnebner.

The International Cosmic Day is an initiative of DESY in cooperation with the International Particle Physics Outreach Group IPPOG and many national networks and partners (https://ippog.org/global-cosmic-rays-portal).

Further Information:
https://icd.desy.de
http://globalcosmics.org
https://cosmic.desy.de/eng
http://cosmicatweb.desy.de