If the High-Resolution Fly's Eye is successful at observing many ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, researchers will want to see even more of them by building an observatory five to 10 times bigger, said University of Utah physicist Charles Jui.
Such an observatory, the $100 million Telescope Array, would include the two HiRes cosmic ray detector sites at Dugway Proving Ground, three more U.S.-funded sites, plus six to eight other sites built by the Japanese, Jui said.
The 11 to 13 hilltop sites would stretch some 100 miles from Dugway Proving Ground south to Millard County. They would observe cosmic ray flashes in conjunction with the proposed $50 million Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory, which would consist of numerous large water-filled tanks scattered over the countryside between Delta and Fillmore in Millard County.
Jui said the Japanese are likely to provide initial funding for the Telescope Array this year and it could be running by 2005. But for now, the Utah Auger observatory is on hold because U.S. science agencies thought it was more important to first build its twin observatory in Argentina to watch cosmic rays over mostly unobserved Southern Hemisphere skies.
Utah researchers also are involved in planning a supersensitive cosmic ray-observing satellite named OWL (Orbiting Wide-angle Lens) that would look down on the atmosphere beginning in 2010 to measure flashes triggered by incoming cosmic rays.

Originally published March 23, 2000, in The Salt Lake Tribune.