Russian scientists on Saturday deployed the world’s largest underwater space telescope – peering into the depths of the universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.
The deep-sea underwater telescope, which has been under construction since 2015, is designed to observe neutrinos.
The telescope, called Baikal-GVD, is placed at a depth of 750-1,300 meters (2,500-4,300 feet), about 4 kilometers from the lake shore.
Neutrinos are difficult to detect, and water is an effective medium for detecting neutrinos.
The neutrino telescope is the equivalent of a floating observatory, with spherical glass and stainless steel modules strung via ropes.
On Saturday, scientists carefully sank the telescope into the frozen lake water through a rectangular hole in the ice.
Lake Baikal-GVD is put into the water. (Kirill Shipitsin/Sputnik)
“At this moment at our feet there is a neutrino telescope with a volume of half a cubic kilometer.” Dmitry Naumov of the United Nuclear Research Institute told AFP while standing on the frozen lake place.
Naumov said that in a few years, the telescope will be expanded to one cubic kilometer.
He added that the Baikal telescope will be comparable to the Ice Cube neutrino observatory in Antarctica, a research station built by the United States in the Antarctic, the main body of which is a giant neutrino observatory buried under the Antarctic ice.
Russian scientists say the telescope is the largest neutrino detector in the Northern Hemisphere, and Lake Baikal – the world’s largest freshwater lake – is ideal for housing a floating observatory.
“Of course, Lake Baikal is the only lake where a neutrino telescope can be deployed because of its depth.” Bair Shoibonov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP, “Fresh water is important, as is the transparency of the water. And having two and a half months of ice cover is also very important.”
The telescope is the result of a collaborative effort by scientists from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia and Slovakia.
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