Over the weekend, Russian scientists dropped a series of detectors between 2,500 and 4,300 feet below the surface of Lake Baikal (via Phys.org). Together, the sensors form the Baikal-Gigaton volume detector, the largest underwater space telescope in the northern hemisphere. This will help scientists study neutrinos. Although one of the most abundant particles in the universe, neutrinos are also the smallest that humans currently know. They can also travel great distances without communicating with any other forms of interaction. These factors make it difficult to detect and study, but they can teach us a great deal about the history of the universe.
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A joint project between Russia, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the construction of Baikal-GVD, was started in 2015. The actual ‘telescope’ consists of hundreds of spherical modules of glass and stainless steel that pass through a set of cables. These sensors currently cover an area of 17,657 cubic feet. Over time, the plan is to add more sensors to make the telescope even bigger.
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Why they would put the modules under water is a useful medium for detecting neutrinos, and Lake Baikal has plenty of them. It is located in southern Siberia and is one of the world’s largest and deepest freshwater lakes. It is also pristine and covered with ice for at least two months of the year. There are not many places on the planet that are as ideal for this kind of research as Lake Baikal. The only two other telescopes that match in scale are the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and the ANTARES Telescope deep underwater in the Mediterranean.