For decades, scientists have scavenged for mysterious the “ghost particles” known as neutrinos, which are subatomic particles with no mass and almost no electrical charge. Despite their elusive nature, ghost particles are theorized to be the most common matter particles in the universe, with trillions of the buggers passing through our bodies every second.
Though numerous groups have observed neutrinos, their low-energy nature makes them incredibly hard to detect, with a number of early breakthroughs taking place throughout 2025.
Now, after ten years of construction, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) in China is hoping for some breakthroughs of its own.
JUNO is a spherical neutrino detector, a hulking 20,000-tonne orb nestled deep under the mountains of Kaiping in southern China. At a cost of over $350 million, it has one purpose: to detect the order of neutrino masses.
Despite coming online just 86 days ago, JUNO has already delivered some remarkable results, recording neutrino oscillation parameters with significantly more precision than all other previous experiments combined, according to press release by researchers at Germany’s University of Mainz who are working with the detector. Basically, when scientists first detected ghost particles from the Sun, they found that the amount of neutrinos emitted was far lower than what they had predicted, a dilemma which came to be known as “solar neutrino tension.” A preliminary paper established the detector was operating with exceptional precision, demonstrating “excellent stability” and readiness to break new ground in physics research.
Early detectors only caught one type of neutrino, making it seem like most of the Sun’s particles had vanished. The mystery was solved when we learned that neutrinos can morph into different forms as they travel. The new JUNO data has now measured this morphing ability with incredible precision, confirming the behemoth unit is meeting its ambitious expectations.
“Achieving such precision within only two months of operation shows that JUNO is performing exactly as designed,” JUNO project manager and spokesperson Yifang Wang said in the release. “With this level of accuracy, JUNO will soon determine the neutrino mass ordering, test the three-flavor oscillation framework, and search for new physics beyond it.”
While JUNO is situated in China, the orb is a massive international effort staffed by over 700 researchers from 17 various countries, including Italy, France, Russia, Germany, and the US.
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