In a groundbreaking endeavor, Chinese scientists have embarked on the construction of the world’s largest neutrino telescope, poised to dive 3,500 meters beneath the surface of the South China Sea. The project, known as the Tropical Deep-sea Neutrino Telescope, or Trident, is slated for completion in 2030 and has been christened “Hailing” (Ocean Bell) in Chinese.
Neutrinos, often referred to as “ghost particles,” are the most abundant particles with mass in the universe. These elusive subatomic entities are generated whenever atomic nuclei come together or split apart, and they have been the focus of scientific curiosity for decades. The scientific community believes that the Trident neutrino telescope will be instrumental in unraveling the mysterious origins of cosmic rays, a century-old puzzle of the extreme universe.
The Trident array will be anchored 3.5 kilometers below the Western Pacific Ocean, and it will scan the surrounding seawater for the faint flashes of light produced when cosmic neutrinos interact with water molecules. Unlike other neutrino observatories, the Trident’s unique equatorial location allows it to receive neutrinos arriving from all directions due to the Earth’s rotation, ensuring comprehensive, all-sky observations without blind spots.
Xu Donglian, the project’s chief scientist and spokeswoman from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, emphasized, “Using Earth as a shield, Trident will detect neutrinos penetrating from the opposite side of the planet.” She further explained during a recent news conference that roughly 100 billion ghost particles, known as neutrinos, traverse every square centimeter of a human body every second. Despite their abundance, neutrinos’ lack of electrical charge and nearly negligible mass means they interact with other matter only sparingly.
The ambitious project is not solely focused on cosmic rays but also aims to test space-time symmetries and explore quantum gravity, indirectly searching for dark matter. During the press conference, project chair Jing Yipeng highlighted the telescope’s potential to unlock fundamental physics mysteries over astronomical baselines.
In a recently published paper in the international journal Nature Astronomy, Xu and her colleagues from some of China’s top universities reported that Trident is rapidly taking shape approximately 540 kilometers south of Hong Kong. The researchers stated, “With its advanced photon-detection technology and large dimensions, TRIDENT expects to observe the IceCube steady source candidate NGC 1068 with 5σ significance within 1 year of operation.”
This heightened level of sensitivity is poised to revolutionize the exploration of cosmic rays’ origins and the probing of fundamental physics on an astronomical scale. The Trident project is undeniably an extraordinary leap forward in our quest to understand the deepest mysteries of the universe.
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