China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) Nears Completion

China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) Nears Completion

Beneath the city of Jiangmen in China's southern Guangdong province lies a large research infrastructure project that is specifically designed to study neutrinos. Neutrinos are the oldest and most primitive elementary particles that have existed since the beginning of the universe. Understanding neutrinos opens the door to understanding the universe and existing matter in the world. CGTN's Liu Jiaxin paid a visit to this large detector, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), before it is officially put into operation in November 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 that 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.

Learn more about the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory: 

http://juno.ihep.cas.cn

Video Credit: CGTN
Duration: 3 minutes
Release Date: Oct. 15, 2024

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