Giant space telescope submerged thousands of feet under the world’s deepest lake

Russian scientists on Saturday launched one of the world’s largest underwater space telescopes to scan the depths of the Universe from the crystal-clear waters of Lake Baikal.

The Deep Underwater Telescope, under construction since 2015, is designed to observe neutrinos, the smallest particles currently known.

Dubbed Baikal-GVD, the telescope was submerged to a depth of 750 to 1,300 meters (2,500 to 4,300 feet), about four kilometers from the lake shore.

Baikal-GVD being lowered into the water. (Kirill Shipitsin / Sputnik Kirill Shipitsin / Sputnik / AFP)

Neutrinos are very difficult to detect and water is an efficient medium to do so.

The floating observatory consists of ropes with spherical glass and stainless steel modules attached to it.

On Saturday, scientists observed that the modules were carefully lowered into the freezing water through a rectangular hole in the ice.

“A neutrino telescope measuring half a cubic kilometer is located right under our feet,” Dmitry Naumov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP, standing on the frozen surface of the lake.

In several years, the telescope will be enlarged to measure one cubic kilometer, Naumov said.

(Bair Shaibonov / Russian Institute for Nuclear Research / AFP)

The Baikal telescope will compete with Ice Cube, a giant neutrino observatory buried under Antarctic ice at a US research station at the South Pole, he added.

Russian scientists say the telescope is the largest neutrino detector in the northern hemisphere and that Lake Baikal – the world’s largest freshwater lake – is ideal for housing the floating observatory.

“Of course, Lake Baikal is the only lake where you can deploy a neutrino telescope because of its depth,” Bair Shoibonov of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research told AFP.

“Fresh water is also important, so is the clarity of the water. And the fact that there is an ice cover for two to two and a half months is also very important.”

The telescope is the result of a collaboration between scientists from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia and Slovakia.

© Agence France-Presse