Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO)

Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), the world’s largest neutrino detector, was activated recently.

About JUNO

It is located 700 meters underground near Jiangmen city in the Guangdong Province in Southern China.
Objective: To determine the mass hierarchy of neutrinos, which involves identifying which types of neutrinos are the lightest and heaviest.
The facility’s core feature is a massive 600-tonne spherical detector outfitted with thousands of light-detecting tubes. This detector will be enclosed in a 12-storey cylindrical pool of water.
Multi-purpose Research: The observatory will detect reactor neutrinos from nearby nuclear power plants, observe supernova neutrinos, study atmospheric and solar neutrinos, and investigate geo-neutrinos from the Earth’s interior.
International Collaboration: France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the U.S., and Taiwan.

IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Largest neutrino telescope in ice; detects high-energy astrophysical neutrinos.
Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE): Located in the USA, it is a long-baseline liquid argon detector to probe CP violation, neutrino mass hierarchy, and capture supernova neutrinos.
KM3NeT: Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. Detects high-energy neutrinos to study cosmic sources and fundamental neutrino properties.
Super-Kamiokande (Super-K): Located in Japan, it is an underground water Cherenkov detector that confirmed neutrino oscillations and studies solar, atmospheric, and supernova neutrinos.
India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO): Located in Theni District, Tamil Nadu, it will focus on studying the properties of atmospheric neutrinos.

Neutrinos are tiny particles with no electric charge (neutral) and very little mass. They are the lightest of all the subatomic particles that have mass.
They are called “ghost particles” due to their extremely weak interactions with matter, making them hard to detect (elusive). They interact only via the weak nuclear force and gravity.
- Trillions of them move through our bodies every second without ever interacting with us.
Neutrinos are the most abundant particles that have mass in the universe.
They are the second most abundant particles in the universe, only after light.
Sources of Neutrinos: Sun (solar neutrinos); cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere; nuclear reactors; supernovae; early universe (relic neutrinos), etc.
3 known types of Neutrinos: Electron neutrino, Muon neutrino, and Tau neutrino.

Messengers of Universe: Since they interact weakly, they can escape from dense objects like the Sun’s core or supernovae, carrying deep cosmic secrets.
Role in Standard Model: They challenge and expand our understanding of physics, especially since they have mass (contrary to early assumptions).