Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SuperK Neutrino Detector Severely Damaged.

Posted by chrisd on from the travesties-in-big-science-land dept.

Eric Sharkey writes "The Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector, which announced the discovery of neutrino oscillation and mass in 1998 (covered by Slashdot at the time), has been severely damaged. The NY Times (free reg, blah blah) has an article here. Most of the phototubes have been destroyed. Repair estimates top $30M, leaving the world far less capable of observing the next supernova neutrino burst, should it arrive before repairs or a replacement could be completed." CD: I called the lead of the project and he was in the tank checking out the damage. The webpage for the Super-Kamiokande is here. There are pictures for you to peruse.

2 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. could be the end... by astrophysics · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course this is just wild speculation, but...

    A couple of Japanese colleges say that SuperK was previously being targeted for budget cuts, and was fighting to maintain funding. They were concerned that if it would indeed take tens of millions of USDs to fix, then it may be cut. That would be a real dissappiontment.

    Let's hope SuperK comes back on line, and that we don't have a galactic supernova go off while SuperK is being fixed.

  2. Here's why (a guess) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Right, pressure: a bulb imploding under a significant depth of water (say, at the bottom of the tank, I doubt it is artificially pressurised in any way, the volume would be too large for that to be an economically feasible structure) will create a shockwave within the water - which may have enough energy in turn to cause a neighbouring bulb to implode, etc, etc, bringing about a cascade failure of the bulbs.

    Which is why deep water divers have to be carefull with their lights while working under pressure - if one implodes, the shockwave is like a small bomb going off. Remember, water is much more dense than air, any shockwaves will have significantly more energy, particularly at a depth of 40 meters.

    All it would take is for one bulb to be broken somewhere in the depths of the tank (through physical impact or corrosion, etc) to set off a large number of them. Despite it's size, these are delicate instruments.

    Just a rational, educated guess.