China Launches Juno, the World’s Largest Neutrino Observatory

China officially put the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (Juno) into operation in the south of the province of Guangdong – the currently largest facility worldwide for researching so -called “ghost particles” – the neutrinos.

35 -meter ball

In the last week, the detector started after around ten years of construction with data acquisition, as the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced. The observatory is 700 meters underground in a gigantic underground complex. The centerpiece is a 20,000 tons of heavy liquid tinertillator, enclosed in a 35 meter acrylic ball. This in turn is in a 44 meter deep water basin. The aim of the instrument is to determine the mass of different neutrinotypes – including those that arise, among other things, in the nearby nuclear power plants Taishan and Yangjiang.

Project spokesman and particle physicist Wang Yifang spoke of a “historical milestone”. He emphasized that for the first time, a detector of this size and precision is only available for neutrino research. Juno should answer basic questions about the nature of matter and the universe.

The construction work for the underground complex began in 2015, the installation of the detector then started at the end of 2021. In December 2023, the installation was completed, followed by a multi -month filling with high -purity liquid. Engineer Ma Xiaoyan said that the highest demands on purity, stability and security had to be met. Hundreds of engineers and technicians have worked on it for years.

International team

With a planned term of up to 30 years, Juno should not only examine current questions of particle physics, but also go to the search for the so-called neutrinolos double beta decay in the long term. Evidence would confirm that Neutrinos are their own anti -particles, that would be a crucial indication of understanding matter in the universe. The international project combines over 700 scientists from 17 countries, including researchers from Germany, France and Italy.

According to Gioacchino Ranucci from the University of Milan, deputy spokesman for the project, Juno is the result of intensive worldwide cooperation. The technology used has reached the previous limits of neutrino research and opened new perspectives. Juno is the first big experiment of a new generation of neutrino observatories. Comparable projects such as the American Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (Dune) and the Japanese Hyper-Kamiokande are only to follow at the end of this decade.