SNOLAB in Greater Sudbury has made a bid to start work on a $400 million experiment.
Officials said this week the project would take around 10 years to develop and would allow them to learn more about particle physics and the cosmos.
SNOLAB is an underground physics laboratory in Vale Creighton’s nickel mine.
Chief business officer Samantha Kuula said the Sudbury operations are unique.
“There’s only a dozen labs around the world, but we are the deepest clean lab in the world doing this kind of science,” Kuula said.
Recently, SNOLAB hosted more than 60 of the world’s leading particle physicists and representatives from science funding bodies to discuss how they would develop a program to support a new experiment.
“This project that we’re trying to bring to Sudbury, is the study of tiny particles called a neutrino,” said executive director Dr. Jodi Cooley.
“By understanding more about these neutrinos and properties, we’ll actually learn something more about particle physics and the cosmos.”
“With this new investment, with these new experiments, we’re going to be able to train so many more students, inspire so many more students,” Kuula added.
“And really, that’s beneficial for not only Sudbury but for Canada as a whole.”
Cooley said although this project is big, it’s in line with other projects they’ve previously developed.
“So the size of this experiment is actually pretty enormous,” she said.
“It’s essentially the size of seven story-building. But just to give you a picture, our largest experiment is currently the size of a 10-story building.”
Cooley said once the funding agency decides what the project will look like and how it will operate, it will take around a decade to build the experiment.
