{"id":180445,"date":"2025-08-27T19:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180445\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T19:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:00:12","slug":"this-giant-sphere-just-joined-the-hunt-for-ghost-particles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180445\/","title":{"rendered":"This Giant Sphere Just Joined the Hunt for ‘Ghost Particles’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The elusive neutrino\u2014a near massless particle with no charge\u2014tests the limits of physicists\u2019 creativity, but sometimes the answer is just to go big<\/a>. And the biggest detector of them all has finally joined the search for the so-called \u201cghost particles.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a decade of construction, China\u2019s Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) officially began taking data on August 26. The giant, spherical detector lies about 2,300 feet (700 meters) underground and collects antineutrino signals from two nuclear plants 33 miles (53 kilometers) away.<\/p>\n

The sphere holds a whopping 20,000 tons of liquid scintillator that flickers whenever an antineutrino zips by. Surrounding the detector is a 144-foot-deep (44-meter-deep) water pool lined with tubes that capture these flashes and convert them into signals scientists can analyze.<\/p>\n

\"JunoAn engineer with the JUNO Collaboration checks the tubes that convert antineutrino interactions into electric signals. Credit: JUNO Collaboration <\/p>\n

As the neutrino\u2019s antimatter counterpart, antineutrinos presumably have the same mass as neutrinos. Using this feature, JUNO scientists hope to better understand the nature of neutrino mass, which physicists theorize operates according to strange quantum mechanical principles.<\/p>\n

Neutrinos are weird, period <\/p>\n

Evidence suggests that trillions of neutrinos pass through us every second. But because they so rarely interact with anything, it\u2019s excruciatingly difficult to confirm their existence\u2014which, to be clear, we have done<\/a> many<\/a> times,<\/a> but not without a lot of time and effort (and perhaps many physicist tears).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s not enough of a hassle, neutrinos also come in three distinct flavors: electron, muon, and tau. Neutrinos flip between different flavors in a process known as oscillation. There are also three identified masses associated with neutrinos, unceremoniously named mass 1, mass 2, and mass 3.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the catch: physicists still don\u2019t know which flavor corresponds to which mass number\u2014if any. That\u2019s because the annoying-yet-bewitching rules of quantum mechanics strongly suggest<\/a> each neutrino flavor is a combination of different mass states.<\/p>\n

So far, physicists believe some neutrino masses have a slightly higher chance of appearing as a certain flavor, but they\u2019ve yet to find a conclusive answer. And this outstanding question regarding the order of neutrino masses represents one of JUNO\u2019s primary goals.<\/p>\n

The future is bright, er, sparkling <\/p>\n

Even before JUNO\u2019s official launch, the humongous detector preemptively caught antineutrino signals, and its key performance indicators \u201cmet or exceeded design expectations,\u201d the JUNO Collaboration announced in a release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"JunoJUNO caught an antineutrino signal on August 24, two days before its official launch. Credit: JUNO Collaboration <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, we have in operation a detector of this scale and precision dedicated to neutrinos,\u201d said Yifang Wang, JUNO\u2019s spokesperson, in the release. \u201cJUNO will allow us to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further down the line, JUNO\u2019s extreme sensitivity could also probe tangentially related questions in particle physics, such as detecting sterile neutrinos or investigating proton decays. Currently, JUNO is planned to run for up to 30 years, during or after which it may receive upgrades to further boost its sensitivity. Either way, there\u2019s no doubt that we\u2019ll soon see phenomenal science coming from JUNO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elusive neutrino\u2014a near massless particle with no charge\u2014tests the limits of physicists\u2019 creativity, but sometimes the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":180446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[12975,70839,813,159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-180445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-juno","9":"tag-neutrinos","10":"tag-particle-physics","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115102274629865815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}