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Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector)
Why is it in News?
- Russian scientists launched the Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector) in the waters of Lake Baikal.
Details:
- It is one of the world’s biggest underwater neutrino telescopes.
- The Baikal-GVD is one of the three largest neutrino detectors in the world along with the IceCube at the South Pole and ANTARES in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Baikal is the world’s deepest lake situated in Siberia,
- Aim -
(1) To study in detail the elusive fundamental particles called neutrinos
(2) To possibly determine their sources.
- Neutrinos:
(1) They are abundant in nature, with about a thousand trillion of them passing through a human body every second.
(2) They are the second most abundant particles, after photons, which are particles of light.
(3) But while neutrinos are abundant, they are not easy to catch.
(4) This is because they do not carry a charge, as a result of which they do not interact with matter.
(5) One way of detecting neutrinos is in water or ice, where neutrinos leave a flash of light or a line of bubbles when they interact.
(6) An underwater telescope such as the GVD is designed to detect high-energy neutrinos.
(7) High-energy neutrinos may have come from the Earth’s core, or could have been produced during nuclear reactions in the Sun.
Source: Indian Express