China to build world's largest underwater

In China, work has begun on the "ghost particle" detector that will be the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. This detector will be called the Tropical Deep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT), which translates to "Ocean Bell" in Chinese. The scientific community in China has made great progress as a result of this research, which constitutes a huge step forward.

This innovative project is expected to be completed in the year 2030, and according to a post on Space.com, the project's purpose is to capture elusive neutrinos during the brief window of time in which they are observable in the deep ocean depths. This will provide important insights into the origins of neutrinos in the cosmos.

Subatomic neutrinos, also referred to as "ghost particles," are distinguishable from other subatomic particles by their nearly null mass and total absence of any sort of electrical charge. Due to the fact that they pass through matter with only a minimal degree of interaction, it is notoriously difficult to detect them.

When these mysterious particles are slowed down, it is possible to trace them back to ancient catastrophic cosmic events such as stellar explosions and galaxy mergers, according to Space.com. These catastrophes occurred in the distant past.

The neutrino detector known as TRIDENT is situated 3,500 meters (11,000 feet) below the surface of the ocean. It employs the Earth as a barrier in order to detect neutrinos that are arriving from the opposite side of the planet.

Chief scientist Xu Donglian offered a rationalization for the situation. "As TRIDENT is near the equator, it can receive neutrinos coming from all directions with the rotation of the Earth, enabling all-sky observation without any blind spots."

According to the study, this forward-thinking initiative will make use of more than 24,000 optical sensors. These sensors will be dispersed among 1,211 threads, with each string having a length of 2,300 feet (or 700 meters), ascending from the ocean floor. The diameter of the detector will be four kilometers and it will cover an incredible 1.7 cubic miles (7.5 cubic kilometers) of space. It will be organized in a pattern that is analogous to the Penrose tiling when it is laid out.

In comparison, the monitoring area of the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica, which is currently the largest neutrino detector, is only 1 cubic kilometer or 0.24 cubic miles. This means that TRIDENT is significantly more sensitive than previous neutrino detectors and is in an excellent position to make important neutrino discoveries.

It is projected that the TRIDENT pilot project will begin operations in the year 2026, and that the full detector will become operational in the year 2030.