ACTINIDE SUB-ACTINIDE FLUX RATIO ESTIMATED FROM NASA CHALLENGER SPACE-SHUTTLE BORNE PASSIVE DETECTOR EXPERIMENT

A video trace analysis of 117 ultra heavy cosmic nuclei detected by NA SA space shuttle borne lexan detectors has been presented here. The ma jor axes of the elliptical track etch pits in the long hour etched det ectors have been measured using a Hund microscope computerized for the measurements using a Pentium. The major axes distribution exhibits th e existence of ultra heavy nuclei of charges of Z ranging from 72 to 9 6 compatible with the expected results from restricted energy loss cal culations. The estimated actinide sub-actinide flux ratio has been fou nd to be 0.0636 +/- 0.0248 which is comparable to the earlier observat ions by Fowler et al., Thompson et al. and O'Sullivan.