Giant Space Telescope Submerged Thousands of Feet Below World s Deepest Lake
AFP
15 MARCH 2021
Russian scientists on Saturday launched one of the world s biggest underwater space telescopes to peer deep into the Universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.
The deep underwater telescope, which has been 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 750-1,300 meters (2,500-4,300 feet), around four kilometers from the lake s shore.
Baikal-GVD being lowered into the water. (Kirill Shipitsin/Sputnik Kirill Shipitsin/Sputnik/AFP)
Neutrinos are very hard to detect and water is an effective medium for doing so.