NOvA Far Detector Live Webcam

This text will be replaced

You are watching the creation of the most powerful neutrino experiment in North America.

It’s called NOvA, and it’s a collaboration among roughly 170 scientists at 34 institutions around the world. The project is currently under construction in two locations – the 360-ton NOvA near detector is being built underground at Fermilab, while the 14,000-ton far detector is being assembled in this building near Ash River, Minnesota, as you can see above.

The far detector will be made up of 28 PVC blocks, each 51 feet high and wide, and seven feet deep. When it’s finished, the device will be about 200 feet long. Filled with a transparent liquid and outfitted with light-sensitive sensors, the NOvA far detector will analyze a beam of neutrinos that begins its journey at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, and travels through about 500 miles of earth to the detector.

The NOvA experiment is looking to answer fundamental questions about neutrinos and the role they play in the universe. There are three types of neutrinos. The experiment will observe muon neutrinos oscillating into electron neutrinos, and aims to discover which types of neutrinos possess more mass than other types. It will pave the way to discovering why there is only matter in the universe, instead of equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

Both the near and far detectors are expected to be completed in 2014. 

For more information:


last modified 10/02/2012   email Fermilab