Russia Commissions Neutrino Telescope at Lake Baikal; Is It An Underwater Telescope?

Russians launched the Northern Hemisphere's first-ever Baikal neutrino telescope (Baikal-GVD) on Saturday.

This telescope will be used by Russian scientists to help explain the emergence and evolution of the universe.

"We expect that our colleagues will make their contribution, we will all together understand the Universe, we will reveal its history, how galaxies were born," Russia's Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov said per TASS News.

He added that research is one of the motors of regional growth, so this is also significant for the country.

Maxim Libanov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Nuclear Research, also said that the project cost about 2.5 billion rubles ($33.98 million).

The project will be developed and supplemented. If no new larger telescopes are installed before 2030, Baikal-GVD will be the largest on the planet.

The Baikal-GVD neutrino telescope is a multi-billion dollar research endeavor. There are many neutrino telescopes around the world, including one in Antarctica.

The Baikal Telescope is a one-of-a-kind science installation that serves as the most critical part of the Global Neutrino Network in the Northern Hemisphere.

How Baikal neutrino telescope works

France24 said the deep underwater telescope, which has been in the works since 2015, will be used to study the tiniest particles called neutrinos.

The telescope, known as Baikal-GVD, was submerged to a depth of 750-1,300 meters (2,500-4,300 feet), about four kilometers from the lake's shore.

Neutrinos are highly challenging to identify. Hence, water is an essential tool for measuring particles.

The floating observatory is made up of strings that are connected to spherical glass and stainless steel modules.

Scientists said the modules were deliberately lowered into the frozen waters through a rectangular hole in the ice on Saturday.

"A neutrino telescope measuring half a cubic kilometre is situated right under our feet," Dmitry Naumov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP per Phys.org.

The telescope will be expanded in the coming years to measure one cubic kilometer, according to Naumov.

Naumov said the Baikal telescope would compete with Ice Cube, a massive neutrino observatory hidden under the Antarctic ice at a US research station at the South Pole.

The telescope is the largest neutrino detector in the Northern Hemisphere, Russian scientists said. Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater lake, is the perfect location for the floating observatory.

Because of its depth, Bair Shoibonov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP that Lake Baikal is the only lake where a neutrino telescope can be deployed.

He stressed the importance of both fresh water and water clarity. Also crucial is the fact that there is ice cover for two or two and a half months.

Scientists from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia worked to create the telescope.

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