Carol MarzuolaAstrophysicists awaiting the Pierre AugerObservatory’s high-energy cosmic-ray dataare keeping a nervous eye on the politicaland economic crisis in Argentina, where theSouthern Hemisphere arm of the observa-tory is due to be completed by 2005.

Two hundred and fifty researchers from 19countries are involved in the US$50-millionproject to build the world’s largest cosmic-ray observatory. It will study cosmic radiation— the flow of charged particles from space thatstreams through the Earth’s atmosphere —and, in particular, the rare and mysterious particles of very high energies.

The southern part of the observatory, inArgentina’s Mendoza province, is being builtfirst. The northern arm, to be located in theUnited States, will come later. Argentina hadpledged $15 million to the project, but sinceDecember 2001, when the Argentinian pesowas devalued, the country has plunged deeper into economic and political crisis (see Nature 415, 104; 2002) and is unlikely tofulfil all of its obligations.

High-energy cosmic rays intrigue physi-cists because they cannot identify astro-physical objects or events, such as collidinggalaxies, that are sufficiently violent toexplain the rays’ origins. But high-energyparticles of 1020 electron volts or more hit theEarth’s atmosphere only rarely — aboutonce per km2 per century.

The Auger observatory will use two sets ofdetectors to find these cosmic rays. At eachsite, 1,600 surface detectors — large above-ground water tanks equipped with photo-multipliers — will identify secondary cosmic-ray showers produced in the atmosphere byincoming rays. Additionally, 24 special telescopes will detect fluorescence producedby the particles as they pass through theatmosphere.

A prototype array of 30 detectors and two telescopes was completed last year inArgentina and has already produced usefuldata, says James Cronin of the University ofChicago, a joint leader of the Auger project.

Alberto Etchegoyen, an official at Argen-tina’s atomic-energy commission and the project’s southern spokesman, says that thetransitional Argentinian government has noclear long-term plans for science or tech-nology, and admits that the project may haveto find some of the promised funding fromother sources. Project supporters in Argenti-na and Brazil, for example, are jointly seekinga $3-million grant from an internationaldevelopment bank fund for Brazil to enablethem to participate.

Optimists also point out that the devalua-tion of the peso will make the dollars andeuros of the project’s other contributingnations go further in Argentina. Paul

Mantsch, a project manager for Auger at theFermi National Accelerator Laboratory inBatavia, Illinois, says: “We’re really opti-mistic that when the time comes to make upwhat’s missing, we can do that.”

Nonetheless, Auger’s participants contin-ue to worry. At the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Albuquerque,

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New Mexico, physicist Michael Turner of the University of Chicago urged US fundingagencies to “ensure timely completion andoperation” of the observatory in case therewas a problem. “The whole future of this field hinges upon the result of the southernAuger,” he said. ■

➧ www.auger.org

Argentine crisis rattles cosmic-ray hunters

Cosmic detection: a surface detector (left) andtelescope camera (above) in place in Mendoza.

Rex Dalton, Tucson The lock on a 2,000-year-old mummy’sscientific secrets has been opened by a SouthAfrican archaeologist — after a three-yearwrangle with local tribes and landownersover its custody.

Johan Binneman, archaeology curator atthe Albany Museum in Grahamstown, foundthe mummy in 1999, during an approvedexpedition at a hunter-gatherer shelter sitein the Kouga Mountains in South Africa’sEastern Cape province.

But government officials refused to letBinneman, whose work was publicly funded,present scientific data on the Kouga mummyuntil last month, when he attended thebiennial conference of the Society ofAfricanist Archaeologists at Tucson, Arizona.

Last September, Maryna Steyn, a physicalanthropologist at the University of Pretoriawho worked with Binneman, was unable topresent a manuscript on the specimen at thefourth World Congress on Mummy Studiesin Greenland, pending approval by SouthAfrican government officials.

The mummy is 145 cm tall and is thoughtto be a male of 50–55 years of age, possibly ashaman or a tribal chief. It was found in anear-fetal position — with its feet bound —and wrapped in leaves of a poisonous plant(Boophane disticha), a well-known coagulant.

Researchers say that this discovery is the firstof its age in southern Africa.

As well as problems with landowners, thefind set off a tussle between local tribes.Two, the Inqua and the Gonaqua, laid claimto the mummy as a former leader. Butprovincial government officials — many ofthem from a third tribe, the Nguni — wouldnot accept their claims.

“The mummy symbolizes our culture forcenturies,” says Jean Burgess, chief of theGonaqua, claiming that provincial officialshad dragged their feet in allowing its fullexamination. The officials could not bereached for comment.

Binneman says the disputes are deterringarchaeologists from exploring the KougaMountains site further. ■

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MHabeas corpus: disputed ownership has delayedscientific description of the Kouga mummy.

© 2002 Nature Publishing Group