Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
A massive 700m-deep sphere, containing thousands of light-detecting tubes, will soon be submerged in a 12-story cylindrical pool of water to detect neutrinos in one of the largest particle experiments ever.
The $300 million Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) in China’s Guangdong province will soon start collecting neutrino data, aiming to solve one of the biggest mysteries in particle physics.
Neutrinos, tiny subatomic particles, pass through everything, including the human body. JUNO seeks to determine their mass hierarchy to unlock clues about the universe’s early days and why matter exists.
Scientists from around the world, including the US, France, and Italy, will study data from JUNO, primarily detecting neutrinos from nearby nuclear plants over six years.
JUNO will also observe solar neutrinos and those emitted from uranium and thorium decay within Earth, helping scientists better understand solar processes and Earth’s mantle convection.
JUNO is set to go operational in the latter half of 2025, ahead of the US-based Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which is delayed until 2030 due to budget overruns.
Collaboration between US and Chinese labs was cut in 2019 due to rising political tensions. Despite this, US-based scientists are still involved in JUNO through independent funding.
JUNO will electronically transmit data to Beijing, Russia, France, and Italy. Rigorous protocols ensure the data’s integrity, with two independent teams cross-checking results before publication.
Credit: Xinhua
Despite political tensions, US scientist J. Pedro Ochoa-Ricoux emphasized that scientific collaboration on JUNO could serve as a small but positive example of US-China cooperation.
While practical applications of neutrino research remain distant, the possibility of using neutrinos for communication across solid matter, like Earth, continues to be explored by scientists.
Credit: Xinhua