The following passage is adapted from an essay on early twentieth-century particle physics and atmospheric science:
In the early years of the twentieth century, physicists were puzzled by the spontaneous discharge of electroscopes, sensitive instruments used to detect electrical charge. Most scientists hypothesized that this background ionization of the atmosphere was caused entirely by natural gamma radiation emitted from radioactive minerals in the Earth's crust. Under this terrestrial model, atmospheric ionization was expected to diminish rapidly with increasing distance from the ground.
To test this assumption, Austrian physicist Victor Francis Hess conducted a series of ten daring balloon ascents between 1911 and 1912. On his final and most decisive flight, on August 7, 1912, Hess boarded a hydrogen-filled balloon named *Böhmen*, accompanied by two navigators. Carrying three specially reinforced, temperature-compensated Wulf electroscopes—two designed to measure total radiation and one unsealed to measure atmospheric pressure—Hess ascended to an altitude of 5,350 meters above the Bohemian landscape.
Hess recorded meticulous observations at regular altitude increments throughout the six-hour voyage. Below 1,000 meters, his electroscopes indeed indicated a slight drop in ionization rates compared to ground level, consistent with the terrestrial radiation model. However, as the balloon rose past 1,800 meters, the ionization level unexpectedly began to climb. By the time Hess reached 5,350 meters, the measured ionization rate was more than double the rate recorded at sea level.
Crucially, Hess had timed the flight to coincide with a partial solar eclipse. Because the solar disk was largely covered during the ascent, Hess was able to rule out the Sun as the primary immediate source of the radiation. Based on these observations, Hess concluded that a highly penetrating radiation must be entering the Earth's atmosphere from outer space—a discovery of extra-terrestrial radiation later termed "cosmic rays" by Robert Millikan, for which Hess was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936.
Based on the passage, evaluate whether the following statement is True or False:
During his August 7, 1912 flight aboard the balloon *Böhmen*, Victor Hess observed that atmospheric ionization rates decreased continuously as altitude increased up to his peak height of 5,350 meters.
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