26/08/2025
China Lunches worlds most powerful neutrino detector 🚀
China has achieved a historic milestone in neutrino physics with the launch of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), officially beginning operations on Tuesday after completing the filling of its 20,000-ton liquid scintillator detector. The facility now stands as the world's most powerful neutrino detector, marking what particle physicist Wang Yifang called "a historic milestone" in the field.
Located 700 meters underground in Guangdong Province, JUNO represents the culmination of more than a decade of preparation and construction, with the project first proposed in 2008 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The massive detector houses a 35.4-meter-diameter acrylic sphere - equivalent to a 12-story building - filled with liquid scintillator and surrounded by over 45,000 ultra-sensitive photomultiplier tubes designed to capture the faintest traces of neutrino interactions.
Revolutionary Detection Capabilities
The observatory's unprecedented scale positions it to tackle one of particle physics' most pressing questions: determining the mass ordering of neutrinos, often called "ghost particles" for their ability to pass through matter virtually undetected. According to the Institute of High Energy Physics, JUNO will achieve an energy resolution of 3 percent at 1 MeV, triple the sensitivity of current detectors
The facility detects antineutrinos produced by the Taishan and Yangjiang nuclear power plants, both located 53 kilometers away, measuring their energy spectrum with record precision. Unlike other experimental approaches, JUNO's mass ordering determination operates independently of matter effects in the Earth and remains largely free of parameter degeneracies.[2][1]
Initial trial operations have shown that key performance indicators meet or exceed design expectations, enabling scientists to address fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the universe. The detector's massive scale allows it to capture neutrino interactions that produce extremely faint light flashes, which are then amplified by a factor of 10 million for analysis.
International Scientific Collaboration
JUNO represents a truly global effort, involving more than 700 researchers from 74 institutions across 17 countries and regions. Gioacchino Ranucci, JUNO's deputy spokesperson and professor at the University of Milano, emphasized that "international cooperation has been crucial" in pushing liquid scintillator technology to its limits.
The collaboration includes expertise from previous liquid scintillator experiments worldwide, with the international community working together to advance the technology to its "ultimate frontier". Nobel laureate Arthur McDonald's team is among the participants, highlighting the project's scientific significance
Broader Scientific Impact
Beyond its primary mission, JUNO will conduct cutting-edge studies of neutrinos from multiple sources including the Sun, supernovae, Earth's atmosphere, and the planet itself. The facility is designed for a scientific lifetime of up to 30 years and includes a credible upgrade path toward searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay, which could reveal whether neutrinos are Majorana particles.
JUNO now forms what researchers describe as a neutrino research "trinity" alongside Japan's Hyper-Kamiokande and America's DUNE experiments. The facility's success positions China at the forefront of neutrino research, with the potential to unlock fundamental secrets about the universe's structure and evolution since the Big Bang.
As JUNO Chief Engineer Ma Xiaoyan noted, building the facility "demanded not only new ideas and technologies, but also years of careful planning, testing, and perseverance," transforming "a bold design into a functioning detector, ready now to open a new window on the neutrino world"
NeutrinoPower
