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Undersea Neutrino Observatory To Be Second-Largest Human Structure
cylonlover writes "An audacious project to construct a vast infrastructure housing a neutrino observatory at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea is being undertaken by a consortium of 40 institutes and universities from ten European countries. The consortium claims that KM3NeT, as it is known, will 'open a new window on the Universe,' as its 'several' cubic kilometer observatory detects high-energy neutrinos from violent sources in outer space such as gamma-ray bursts, colliding stars and supernovae. On the scale of human constructions, it will be second only to the Great Wall of China."
Why build one from scratch? Let's just upgrade the Great Wall of China to be a Great Neutrino Wall of China.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that this is the second-largest human created structure. While this is an impressive experiment which I think is very clever and great for physics, calling this a structure is a bit of a joke. If you were to call an array of phototubes a structure you could easily compare it to, say, the street lights of Los Angeles -- which I'm sure would be counted as a larger "structure".
On the scale of human constructions, it will be second only to the Great Wall of China.
...and the largest one not visible from space...except if you're a neutrino, presumably.
*this space intentionally left blank
"One of the four pointers saying 'come and see', and I saw, and beheld a white
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk0Is8-gGSQ
Klaatu, Little Neutrino
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
No, it's not the biggest. The Deep Space Network has satellites (antennae and data storage servers) around Earth and around Mars. And neither it nor the KM3NeT are solid structures.
The Great Wall is not strictly connected either but at least it consists of large solid fragments that are big on their own. This observatory is merely an array of sensors suspended in the sea. If you want the biggest structure, I'd look at a road system of a country.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
At last, it was high time we build something interesting under the seas.
[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS
"In addition to the neutrino observatory, KM3NeT will house equipment for monitoring the deep-sea environment, including (according to Popsci) the recording of whale song and the observation of bioluminescent organisms."
I guess they thought of that.
"recording of whale song" I hope the RIAA doesn't find out.
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both wrong, this has all the tell-tails of the machinations of KAOS. We'd better shoe-phone 86 and 99 to get on it.
1. The European Union (which is smaller than Europe btw) is the largest economy in the world with the highest GDP by lead of 12% so I guess not. 2. I'd be pretty surprised if a single guy built the Great Wall of China.
In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
Will this "ocean palace", which is built to "detect" these mysterious "neutrino" emminations inadvertantly rouse the mighty lavos before he's good and ready?
You know how it is with those quantum mechanical things- all kinds of consequences happen as a result of obervation! /joke
Ok, jokes aside, this is very awesome. The engineering lessons learned could be applied in a wide range of ocean construction projects.
I know it is not your fault or the fault of /. in general. It should read tallest human structure. And it is probably that way only because it is underwater. The article says second largest considering the scale of construction for a singular project. Nothing about actual size.
I hear Apple has a patent on the shoe phone.
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The research funding in the UK is dwarfed in comparison to military budgets or even annual DVD purchases. It's quite possible that international funding could be found for a project like this. With 40 institutes putting money in it's quite possible this will go ahead, it's a reasonably low-budget project in many ways.
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Yes neutrino farming is the next big thing. I hear Goldman Sachs is selling neutrino futures as well.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The vast amounts of water are what you need, and what you don't get in space. You only detect a neutrino when it, just very occasionally, interacts with matter, which generates a flash which their suspended detectors report. You need cubic kilometres of something of reasonably known chemical composition, preferably with a lot of light nuclei, not vacuum. Another project is using cubic kilometres of Antarctic ice for the same purpose. You could hang your detectors in space, but there would be nothing there to detect unless you hauled cubic kilometres of water or, say, highly compressed hydrogen, there. Not to mention that they would be in different orbits, so that you would need a significant structure to hold them in constant physical relationships.
As to the choice of ocean: the Mediterranean is actually quite clear because of its relatively low oxygen content. While they may be cleaner, the Atlantic etc. are, at least in their shallower areas, pretty opaque because they are full of plankton. And you need a shallow area, of which the Mediterranean has plenty, because you are fastened to the bottom. This is not about the abyssal depths, this is just about instrumenting a very large volume of clear-ish water.
This is a detector that, basically, could not be built in space because of the gigatons of matter needed.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
I think ASCAP or a similar organization would be the one to collect royalties "on behalf of" the whales.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This will be great, until a ship forgets to pull up the anchor or drops it in the wrong place.
I was doing great reading the article linked to, until I got to the part where the optical goodies are built to withstand 6 atmospheres or 20,000 feet of pressure.
'Scuse me, but according to my calculator, and knowing that 34 feet of water is one atmosphere, then 6 is a measly 204 feet. 20,000 feet would be, in slightly rounded figures, 600 atmospheres. And since the Med. Sea is salty, its safe to reduce that to 200 feet.
Its amazing that in all the posts to this story ahead of mine, no one has mentioned the missing word after the 6 "hundred".
Shame on you all, blathering away on stuff that if this is true, will have zip effect because it will fail spectacularly, both in terms of results per unit of money, and the scientific disappointment.
In terms of knowledge gained vs money spent, it certainly seems like its worthwhile to do. Doing it in the Med. also spans a much wider bit of the universe due to the planets rotation in comparison to ICECUBE, which is aimed more along the polar axis.
My unasked till now question though is: Is there enough daytime sunlight penetration at that depth in the Med. to represent a background noise level that will have to be subtracted, and how will this limit its ultimate sensitivity? Secondarily, what is the clarity of the water from the top of those 800 meter towers on down? Given that its sea water, with the detrious of life falling through it from the oxygenated surface layer 1000 feet above, there is zero chance in hell its not somewhat absorbtive of the emitted photons from a neutrino event.
My $0.02 (in 1934 dollars, adjust for inflation of 77 years)
Cheers, Gene