MINOS
MINOS, or Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search, is a two-detector
experiment at Fermilab that began studying neutrino oscillations in 2003. It
uses a beam of neutrinos that first pass through a detector at Fermilab, the
inside of which is seen in this image, and then through one hundreds of miles away
deep within the Soudan Iron Mine in northern Minnesota. The distance between
the two detectors maximizes the probability that the neutrinos will have
revealing interactions over the course of their journey. An international
collaboration of particle physicists at Fermilab uses MINOS to investigate the
puzzle of neutrino mass. The 98-foot-long detector consists of 486 massive
octagonal planes, lined up like the slices of a loaf of bread. Each plane is
made of a sheet of steel covered on one side with a layer of plastic that emits
light when struck by a charged particle. MINOS will help researchers answer
some of the fundamental questions of particle physics, especially how particles
acquire mass.
