Deep underneath a granite hill in southern China, an enormous detector is sniffing out the secrets of the universe.
This futuristic underground observatory has been built with the sole purpose of detecting neutrinos – tiny cosmic particles with a mind–bogglingly small mass.
To date, nobody knows what these ‘ghost particles’ are or how they work.
But scientists hope this $300 million lab will be able to answer these questions – vital to understanding the building blocks of the universe.
Neutrinos date back to the Big Bang, and trillions zoom through our bodies every second. They spew from stars like the sun and stream out when atoms collide in a particle accelerator.
There’s no way to spot the tiny particles whizzing around on their own. Instead, scientists measure what happens when they collide with other matter, producing flashes of light or charged particles.
Neutrinos bump into other particles only very rarely so to up their chances of catching a collision, physicists have to think big.
This is where the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory comes in.
The $300 million detector at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory located 2297 feet (700 meters) underground
An aerial view of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in Kaiping, southern China’s Guangdong province
Workers labor on the underside of the cosmic detector. This futuristic underground observatory has been built with the sole purpose of detecting neutrinos – tiny cosmic particles with a mind–bogglingly small mass
The detector, built in Kaiping in China, took over nine years to build, Its location 2,300ft (700m) underground protects it from cosmic rays and radiation that could throw off its neutrino detection abilities.
The orb–shaped structure is filled with a liquid designed to emit light when neutrinos pass through. These will flow into the detector from two nearby nuclear power stations.
The sphere – a thin bubble of acrylic – is contained within a protective cylinder containing 45,000 tonnes of pure water.
These neutrinos will ‘bump’ into protons in the detector, releasing tiny flashes of light at a rate of about 50 per day.
The detector is specially designed to answer a key question about a longstanding mystery.
Neutrinos switch between three ‘flavours’ as they zip through space, and scientists want to rank them from lightest to heaviest.
‘We are going to know the hierarchy of the neutrino mass,’ Wang Yifang, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told The Times.
‘And by knowing this we can build up the model for particle physics, for neutrinos, for cosmology.’
Wang Yifang, chief scientist and project manager at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory
Scientists hope this $300 million lab will be able to answer questions vital to understanding the building blocks of the universe.
Visitors take a train ride to visit the cosmic detector located deep underground. The orb–shaped structure is filled with a liquid designed to emit light when neutrinos pass through
Sensing these subtle shifts in the already evasive particles will be a challenge, said Kate Scholberg, a physicist at Duke University who is not involved with the project.
‘It´s actually a very daring thing to even go after it,’ she said.
Physicists said it will take around six years to generate the required 100,000 ‘flashes’ that will allow for readings to be statistically significant.
Two similar neutrino detectors – Japan’s Hyper–Kamiokande and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment based in the United States – are under construction.
They are set to go online around 2027 and 2031 and will cross–check the China detector´s results using different approaches.
Though neutrinos barely interact with other particles, they have been around since the dawn of time. Studying these Big Bang relics can clue scientists into how the universe evolved and expanded billions of years ago.
‘They’re part of the big picture,’ Professor Scholberg said.
One question researchers hope neutrinos can help answer is why the universe is overwhelmingly made up of matter with its opposing counterpart – called antimatter – was largely snuffed out.