One small part of Super-Kamiokande

17 June 1998

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Last week's picture showed 9000 phototubes in the Super-Kamiokande detector, 1000 metres underground in a mine in Kamioka in Japan. The detector contains 50,000 tonnes of water, and the phototubes, which line the walls, watch for flashes of light (Cherenkov radiation) caused by the interactions of the elusive particles called neutrinos. Here we see just one of the 50-cm diameter phototubes, with members* of the team from the University of Hawaii who participate in the experiment together with scientists from a total of 23 institutions in Japan and the US.

*(Left to right: Dr Shigenobu Matsuno, Professor John Learned and Dean Takemori.)

Credit: Professor John Learned, University of Hawaii

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