Union Minister Jitendra Singh said in a written reply in Lok Sabha that the government has a proposal to set up a neutrino observatory in the country.

The project has been approved to build the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) at Pottipuram in Theni district in Tamil Nadu. It will be the first neutrino observatory in the country. 

What are neutrinos?

Neutrinos are one of the most abundant particles in the Universe. They, however, are very difficult to observe. They have no electric charge, hence they do not interact via the electro-magnetic force.

High-energy neutrinos are hard-to-catch particles that scientists think are created by the most powerful events in the cosmos, such as galaxy mergers and material falling onto supermassive black holes. They travel at speeds just shy of the speed of light and rarely interact with other matter, allowing them to travel unimpeded across distances of billions of light-years.

Scientists study neutrinos, as well as cosmic rays and gamma rays, to understand what is going on in turbulent cosmic environments such as supernovas, black holes and stars. Neutrinos show the complex processes that occur inside the environment, and cosmic rays show the force and speed of violent activity. But, scientists rely on gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, to brightly flag what cosmic source is producing neutrinos and cosmic rays. 

Neutrinos can also be made artificially. They are produced in radioactive decays and in nuclear reactors.

India-based Neutrino Observatory

India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project is an ambitious research project aimed at studying the properties and interactions of neutrinos.

The proposed observatory will be located in West Bodi Hills in Theni district, which is about 110 km from Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Two caverns will be made inside this hill and a tunnel of 2 km will connect these caverns to the portal outside the hill.

Outside the hill, surface facilities like housing for scientists, engineers and other workers, hostel for students, labs, offices and workshops will be constructed.

The government aims to set up a 51,000 ton Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector to observe naturally occurring atmospheric neutrinos in a cavern. This will help to reduce the noise from cosmic rays that are present over-ground and which would outnumber the rare neutrino interactions even in a detector as large as ICAL.

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