MINOS

Officials at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory today (March 4, 2005) dedicated the MINOS experiment and the beam that will send subatomic particles called neutrinos from Fermilab, near Chicago, to a particle detector in Minnesota.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will begin a projected five-year experiment in early February, 2005 by sending the first batches of subatomic particles called neutrinos on a path through the earth from the laboratory, about 40 miles west of Chicago, to a detector located in the historic Soudan iron mine a half-mile underground in the northeastern corner of Minnesota, about 450 miles away.

Deep in a former iron mine in what is now a Minnesota state park, scientists and government officials today (July 20) wielded pickaxes to chip away, at least symbolically, at the mysteries surrounding the subatomic particles known as neutrinos.