China's New Underground Neutrino Observatory Completes Key Structure | CGTN
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is being built 700 meters below Jiangmen City in south China's Guangdong Province, has completed the installation of the equatorial layer of its core—a huge plexiglass spherical structure. According to He Wei, leader of the stainless steel main structure project and on-site installation manager, it is the largest single plexiglass structure in the world. China's next-generation neutrino detector is expected to be completed by the end of 2023 and put into use in 2024.
With a wall thickness of 120 mm and a weight of more than 600 tons, the plexiglass spherical structure's production and construction are unprecedented. Upon completion, it will be filled with 20,000 tons of liquid scintillator, the target substance for capturing neutrinos. Liquid scintillation counting is the measurement of radioactive activity. It uses the technique of mixing an active material with a liquid scintillator and counting the resultant photon emissions. It will be used at JUNO for the detection of cosmic neutrinos.
Neutrinos are fundamental particles that far outnumber all the atoms in the universe, but rarely interact with other matter. Astrophysicists are particularly interested in high-energy neutrinos, which have energies up to 1,000 times greater than those produced by the most powerful particle colliders on Earth. They think the most extreme events in the universe, like violent galactic outbursts, accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light. Those particles then collide with light or other particles to generate high-energy neutrinos. The first confirmed high-energy neutrino source, announced in 2018, was a type of active galaxy called a blazar.
Video Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)
File Footage: Aug. 19, 2022
Story Credit: CCTV/China Global Television Network (CGTN)/NASA
Duration: 36 seconds
Release Date: July 7, 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment