Neutrino tomography of Earth
nature.com
Neutrino tomography of Earth
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#2This is really brilliant, literally jaw-dropping. I was really blown away by the idea and construction of the detector itself and this application is astounding.
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#3Would it be feasible to put a source and detector in orbit so we could get high resolution CT images of the interior of the earth? IIRC the detector used here is very large, but there are smaller ones and a directed source would go a long way towards making the detection simpler.
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#4This is really brilliant, literally jaw-dropping. I was really blown away by the idea and construction of the detector itself and this application is astounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
You may like KM3NeT then (http://www.km3net.org/). The goal is to build a cubic kilometer spanning instrument at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#5Would it be feasible to put a source and detector in orbit so we could get high resolution CT images of the interior of the earth? IIRC the detector used here is very large, but there are smaller ones and a directed source would go a long way towards making the detection simpler.
An in space detector is (at least to my understanding) not that easy, as you need the surface of the Earth to interact with the neutrinos. These interactions result in muons, which allow to detect that there was a neutrino in the first place. Also, there is a pretty big source for neutrinos pretty close to Earth, but Earth is in its orbit, as opposed to the other way around.
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#6Would it be feasible to put a source and detector in orbit so we could get high resolution CT images of the interior of the earth? IIRC the detector used here is very large, but there are smaller ones and a directed source would go a long way towards making the detection simpler.
An in space detector is (at least to my understanding) not that easy, as you need the surface of the Earth to interact with the neutrinos. These interactions result in muons, which allow to detect that there was a neutrino in the first place. Also, there is a pretty big source for neutrinos pretty close to Earth, but Earth is in its orbit, as opposed to the other way around.
The IceCube neutrino detector consists of about a cubic kilometer of ice. You're not going to put one of those in orbit.
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#7Would it be feasible to put a source and detector in orbit so we could get high resolution CT images of the interior of the earth? IIRC the detector used here is very large, but there are smaller ones and a directed source would go a long way towards making the detection simpler.
An in space detector is (at least to my understanding) not that easy, as you need the surface of the Earth to interact with the neutrinos. These interactions result in muons, which allow to detect that there was a neutrino in the first place. Also, there is a pretty big source for neutrinos pretty close to Earth, but Earth is in its orbit, as opposed to the other way around.
The muons are produced in the upper atmosphere (from cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere). You can't do this in space. Not too mention the size of a neutrino detector, although you can use the e.g. regolith of the moon as a neutrino detector (via the Askaryan effect). In fact there are experiments pointing radio telescopes at the moon to look for ultra-high-energy neutrino interactions. My not-so-polite term for them is lunatics :).
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
An in space detector is (at least to my understanding) not that easy, as you need the surface of the Earth to interact with the neutrinos. These interactions result in muons, which allow to detect that there was a neutrino in the first place. Also, there is a pretty big source for neutrinos pretty close to Earth, but Earth is in its orbit, as opposed to the other way around.
The IceCube neutrino detector consists of about a cubic kilometer of ice. You're not going to put one of those in orbit.
Exactly
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#9This is really brilliant, literally jaw-dropping. I was really blown away by the idea and construction of the detector itself and this application is astounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
You may like KM3NeT then ( http://www.km3net.org/ ). The goal is to build a cubic kilometer spanning instrument at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Wikipedia has a good artist's conception picture of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT
Re: Neutrino tomography of Earth
#10Would it be feasible to put a source and detector in orbit so we could get high resolution CT images of the interior of the earth? IIRC the detector used here is very large, but there are smaller ones and a directed source would go a long way towards making the detection simpler.
Neutrino detection generally requires large volumes and large masses (for very large values of "large"), neither of which are as yet feasible for space based systems. The IceCube neutrino observatory, for example, makes use of a volume of ice that is on the order of a cubic kilometer (over 900 million tonnes). Suffice it to say, building cubic kilometer solid structures in space that weigh hundreds of millions of tonnes is outside of our engineering capabilities at present. However, within the next several decades this might be feasible.