Scientists are build up a immense next - multiplication telescope in a very peculiar location : the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea . They are not planning to wait at the sparkle of distant principal or galax . There in the darkness , deep underwater , they hope to catch the signals of some especial cosmic speck .
The telescope is going to study neutrinos , the tiny neutral speck that can travel through anything without interacting . In fact , trillion of neutrino passed through your torso as you read this condemnation . give that they just interact , scientists have had to construct more and more apt sensor . The Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope , orKM3NeT , is one .
“ Neutrinos very seldom interact , however when a neutrino hits the water it generates light , which the KM3NeT telescope is able to discover , ” Dr Clancy James from the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research ( ICRAR ) in Australia , tell in astatement .
“ The underwater telescope is bombard by 1000000 of different particle but only neutrinos can pass through the Earth to reach the sensing element from below so , unlike normal telescope , it looks down through the Earth at the same sky viewed by up - facing telescopes in Australia . ” Curtin University has just unite the collaboration .
KM3NeT is currently being built in two position with a likely denotation for a third one pending financial backing . One is off the slide of the French Riviera and will mainly analyze “ local ” neutrino . The other is off the coast of Sicily and will appear at the high-pitched - energy neutrino that arrive from supernovae explosion , neutron star fusion , and many other astrophysical phenomenon .
“ This project will facilitate us respond some of the major questions around particle physical science and the nature of our universe , potentially ushering in a Modern geological era in neutrino astronomy , ” Dr James continue .
The first construction form for the scope need placing30 detection unitson the seabed , each of them a bank line with 18 detectors . In the darkness of the deep sea , these instruments can record the flashes of light produced by neutrino interacting with brine . Despite still being under construction , both locations have catching units that are already in berth and collecting data . The team expects 115 detection building block to be deployed in the concluding phase of construction .
KM3NeT is not the only neutrino telescope in the universe . Similar in approach but different in purpose isIceCubein Antarctica , which uses the frozen ice of the South Pole or else of the seawater of the Med to spot neutrino . Networked together , the two will be able to detect neutrino events anywhere in the sky .
