A massive £238 million detector is all set to uncover some mind-boggling mysteries of the universe.
The detector in Kaiping, China has been built by the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory and will soon begin the difficult task of spotting neutrinos: tiny cosmic particles with a mind-bogglingly small mass.
It is reportedly one of the three being built across the globe to study these elusive ghost particles in the finest detail yet. The other two, based in the United States and Japan, are still under construction, reports Euronews.
The Chinese effort, set to go online this year, will push the technology to new limits, said Andre de Gouvea, a theoretical physicist at Northwestern University who is not involved with the project.
He said: “If they can pull that off, it would be amazing”.
The detector took over nine years to build. Its location 2,297 feet (700 meters) underground protects it from pesky cosmic rays and radiation that could throw off its neutrino-sniffing abilities.
Recently, the final steps towards its construction was taken. The orb-shaped detector will later be filled with a liquid designed to emit light when neutrinos pass through and submerge the whole thing in purified water.
The project focuses on studying antineutrinos, which are the antimatter counterparts of neutrinos. Neutrinos are fundamental particles that interact very weakly with matter, making them difficult to detect and study.
Understanding antineutrinos allows scientists to gain deeper insights into neutrino behaviour, as the two are intricately linked.
The experiment aims to unravel a mystery about neutrino mass hierarchy. Neutrinos exist in three types, or flavours (electron, muon, and tau), and can switch, or “oscillate,” between these flavours as they travel.
According to Kate Scholberg, a physicist not involved in the project, the task of observing these subtle transitions in such elusive particles is highly demanding. Success would be a significant achievement in physics.
She said: “It’s actually a very daring thing to even go after it.”
