Giant Space Telescope Submerged Thousands of Feet Below World’s Deepest Lake

Russian scientists on Saturday dispatched one of the world’s greatest underwater space telescopes to peer deep into the Universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.

Efforts To Detect Neutrinos

The deep underwater telescope, which has been under development since 2015, is intended to notice neutrinos, the littlest particles as of now known. Named Baikal-GVD, the telescope was lowered to 750-1,300 meters below the surface (2,500-4,300 feet), around four kilometers from the lake’s shore. Neutrinos are difficult to detect. Water was found to be a successful medium for it. Strings with circular glass and treated steel modules appended to them make up the floating observatory.

Baikal-GVD being lowered into the water. (Kirill Shipitsin/Sputnik Kirill Shipitsin/Sputnik/AFP)

On Saturday, scientists noticed the modules lowered down with caution into the freezing waters through a rectangular hole in the ice. “A neutrino telescope estimating a massive cubic kilometer is working right under our feet,” Dmitry Naumov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP while remaining on the lake’s frozen surface.

Largest Neutrino Detector In The World

In quite a long while the telescope will be extended to quantify one cubic kilometer, Naumov said. The Baikal telescope will match Ice Cube, a monster neutrino observatory covered under the Antarctic ice at a US research station at the South Pole, he added. Russian scientists say the telescope is the biggest neutrino detector in the Northern Hemisphere and Lake Baikal – the biggest freshwater lake on Earth.

The lake is the best option for the floating observatory. “Obviously, Lake Baikal is the lone lake where you can convey a neutrino telescope due to its profundity,” Bair Shoibonov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP. “Fresh water is highly vital, clarity of the water as well. What’s more, the way that there is ice cover for two-over two months is additionally vital.” The work on the telescope is a joint effort between scientists from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia.

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