In search of the neutrino, ghost particle of the universe
by Robin McKie from on (#37108)
A huge, extraordinary machine will soon begin to study an elusive particle in a bid to reveal some of the deep secrets of the cosmos
On the outskirts of Karlsruhe, in south-west Germany, engineers have buried a giant, stainless steel device, bigger than a blue whale, inside the town's institute of technology. The machine looks for all the world like a grounded zeppelin or a buried blimp.
In fact, the apparatus is one of the world's biggest vacuum chambers. Air pressure inside it is lower than that on the surface of the moon and it has been installed to help solve a single, intricate problem: finding the mass of the universe's most insignificant entity, the neutrino.
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