What Happens?
Within five minutes, you should see a rain of fine mist inside the jar as the alcohol, warmed by your hand, condenses within the jar. After another five minutes, the miss will decrease.A bit later, you'll see cobweb-like threads appearing and disappearing at various angles about an inch above the lid. You can bring the magnet against the side of the jar and the trails will deflect toward it.
Why?
In outer space there are objects, such as supernovas and pulsars, that send out burst of cosmic radiation. This is high-energy particle radiation, but it's not harmful. These cosmic rays fly through space at nearly the speed of light. Trillions of such particles pass through the Earth's atmosphere every few minutes, and three to six cosmic ray particles strike each square inch of the earth's atmosphere every second. These cosmic rays are, in fact, flying through your body right now.In the jar, the warmth of your hand heats the "bottom" while the dry ice cools the "top." Somewhere between the two extremes, usually about 1 or 2 inches from the "bottom," the air becomes saturated with alcohol vapor. When cosmic rays pass through this portion of the jar, they cause the alcohol to condense, creating the web-like threads. Because the cosmic radiation is electrically charged, the magnet can cause the threads to move.
