Mining for neutrinos at Soudan

22 July 1998

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This unlikely looking site is the location for the Soudan detector, which has been detecting the perplexing particles known as neutrinos, produced by the interactions of cosmic-rays (particles from outer space) in the Earth's atmosphere. The site is in the Soudan Underground Mine State Park, and the detector itself is 713 m below ground. The detector registers two kinds of neutrino - one type related to the electron, the other to the less-familiar, muon. It provided some of the first evidence that neutrinos may be able to change - or oscillate - from one type to another, as also indicated recently by the Super-Kamiokande experiment.

Credit: Physics Photographic Unit, Oxford University / Soudan

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