Valencia hosts creating the largest submarine telescope … – EntornoInteligente

ABC of Spain 2 / Nearly a hundred scientists from across Europe meets from today until the 27th in the University of Valencia to work in creating the largest telescope Underwater World, the KM3NeT, an experiment that wants to study the universe by neutrinos.

The Institute of Physics Corpuscular (IFIC) leads the Spanish participation in this integrated by universities and research centers in Europe project whose main objective is know the origin of cosmic rays and the composition of the dark matter.

As explained in statements to EFE Juan de Dios Zornoza, IFIC researcher and organizer of the meeting, the relevance of this experiment is high and that will reveal what it is made of dark matter “that is dominant in the universe, but we know what it is made”.

The KM3NeT is a fundamental physics experiment that has “immediate physical application “acknowledged Zornoza, but responds to the” scientific curiosity to know how the universe works “but that will develop technologies that could have applications in the field of marine biology.

The first part of this undersea telescope will be installed this year, after a prototype line is already installed in 2014, and the target, as explained Zornoza, is that in the next two years another thirty lines installed “and then if no funding” is will continue up to 600 lines covering “five or six” cubic kilometers.

Just one of the advantages of neutrino telescopes, explained Juan Zuniga, another of the organizers of the meeting and researcher IFIC, is that you can start using and collect results as they are installing the lines, without waiting for the completed project.

The new KM3NeT have three different modules that will be installed on the coast of Marseille, in Sicily and the Greek coast.

The telescope will be located in the Mediterranean because from past studies have found that offers “significant advantages for this type of experiment” because from the northern hemisphere have a better visibility of the center of our galaxy and in the water, you can rebuild the better the direction of arrival of the neutrinos, which is essential for a telescope, “said Zornoza.

The intention with this experiment is to make a “picture of the universe in neutrinos” to “learn more” of the universe, according to Zúñiga.

“Currently the information universe we know comes from the light but other couriers like neutrinos We can provide more information, “said Zuniga, who has said that, if doing this” picture “, concentrations thereof are detected in parts” can deduce that these sources emit cosmic rays. “

The neutrinos are a major source but are “hard to detect” and therefore very large detectors which also are located more than 2,500 meters deep, the same depth at which it is required and Antares , the predecessor telescope project and smaller in Marseille

Information ABC of Spain 2 .