This 1 Km Deep Underground Tank With Ultra-Pure Water Is Helping Us Solve Universe¡¯s Mysteries
To help capture and understand the behaviour of the neutrinos, scientists in Japan have developed a detector that is nothing like you¡¯ve ever seen before -- the Super Kamiokande, also known as Super K.
The search for subatomic particles, especially neutrinos is an arduous task as they can pass through things without anything obstructing them. However, learning more about them is crucial as these particles will help us understand the mysteries of the universe.
NASA
To help capture and understand the behaviour of the neutrinos, scientists in Japan have developed a detector that is nothing like you¡¯ve ever seen before -- the Super Kamiokande, also known as Super K.
Behold the Super K
Located under Mount Ikeno near the city of Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, the gargantuan structure was created in the year 1983. It is fifteen stories below the ground or roughly 1000 metres. It looks more or less like a water tank and can hold up to a whopping 50,000 tonnes of extremely pure water.
Wikipedia
Super K doesn¡¯t track neutrinos up in space, but rather deep underground. On the other side of Japan in Tokai, the T2K experiment shoots neutrino beams underground which are captured by the Super K.
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Producing light shockwaves
As mentioned earlier, neutrinos are fast and easily penetrable. And as they move they produce shockwaves, just like supersonic jets did when they travelled at the speed of sound. The whole tank is covered with 11,000 light-sensitive photo-multiplier tubes that capture these light shockwaves in action.
Ultra-pure water that has turned acidic
But for the light sensors to capture the neutrino, researchers make sure the water is ultra-pure. When they say the water is super pure, it actually is that.
Kamioka Observatory, ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), The University of Tokyo
The water has been processed multiple times, to clear it of bacteria and particles with UV lights. This in-turn turns the water acidic and alkaline-like. As the beam travels through matter can help researchers understand how our universe came into being as well as decode mysteries being matter and antimatter.
An even larger Hyper-K is in works
While this massive structure is jaw-dropping, researchers have already proposed an even larger Kamiokande called Hyper-Kamiokande or Hyper K which is expected to start functioning in 2026.
Kamioka Observatory, ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), The University of Tokyo
The structure will be 20 times larger than Super K and will also possess 99,000 light detectors as opposed to Super K¡¯s 11,000.
