South Dakota’s underground experiment could rewrite what we know about our existence

In an underground lab beneath South Dakota, scientists are chasing answers that could challenge everything we thought we knew about our origin.

It sounds like science fiction, but it’s real – two labs are racing to answer some of the biggest questions in science: why and how do we exist?

The great cosmic mystery centers on a paradox physicists have grappled with for decades.

Physics says matter and antimatter should’ve cancelled each other out but, somehow, matter won – and now there’s a universe.

VISIT SBX CARS – View live supercar auctions powered by Supercar Blondie

Why? Neutrinos – ghost-like subatomic particles – might be the key to figuring that out.

Enter the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) – a giant lab built 1,500m beneath South Dakota.

Massive in scale, DUNE brings together over 1,400 researchers from around the world, working inside three enormous underground caverns the team affectionately calls ‘cathedrals to science’.

A beam of neutrinos is launched from Fermilab in Illinois and sent 800 miles through solid rock to massive underground detectors at the heart of DUNE.

Neutrinos are so small they pass through matter almost completely undisturbed, so no tunnel is needed – they just shoot straight through to Earth.

The goal is to detect how neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts (anti-neutrinos) change as they travel.

If their behaviour differs, that difference may explain why the universe has matter at all.

But DUNE isn’t the only team chasing that answer.

Half a world away, scientists in Japan are building Hyper-K – a next-generation neutrino lab that’s larger, faster, and set to go live before DUNE does.

Its detector is a colossal tank lined with thousands of golden light sensors, designed to capture the faintest flashes when a neutrino interacts.

The Japanese-led team thinks it will be the first to uncover real clues, thanks to its head start and a detector so precise it can spot a single flash of light deep inside the tank.

Still, some researchers say DUNE has the edge when it comes to digging deeper into how neutrinos really behave.

So, what next?

In less than three years, Hyper-K will turn on. DUNE following later, but promising deeper data.

Both labs are approaching the same mystery from different angles, and together they might offer the clearest picture we’ve ever had. 

If neutrinos really are the key, these labs are about to unlock something huge.

And it’s all happening, quietly, right beneath our feet in South Dakota’s underground.

DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie