July 9, 2014
Today was our last day for several things; our last day
of tours, going underground, and being in the amazing city that is Roma. It is
definitely a bitter-sweet sensation. We hate leaving such a wonderful country
and being done with all the tours and insight on real science, but it will be
nice to be home. Of course the learning doesn’t stop here though. There is
still Neutrino Day for us to take part in, and I know we will learn and have a
great time with that.
This morning we were able to have a little extra time to
sleep in, which is always nice. Once we were up we got right to it though, and
boy were we excited. Many of our teachers, family and
friends back home were jealous of this portion of the trip, both because of us
being in Italy for the sight-seeing, but also for the opportunity to visit the
famous Gran Sasso underground laboratory. The sights of Rome and the mountains
were indeed spectacular, butwhat we really wanted to see were the incredible
experiments first hand and to get a taste of what science in the real world was
truly like. And we got just that, (not only at Gran Sasso, but throughout out
whole trip). Going underground in Italy was much different than back at SRUF or
Soudan. Instead of taking a shaky elevator, we took a nice drive through the
beautiful mountains and into a long tunnel.It was a nice change.
Once underground, we were able to see many of the
experiments that we had heard so much about in the weeks prior to Italy. Some
of those experiments include Cresst, Coure, LVD, GERDA, OPERA, and others. OPERA
was interesting because it was detecting the oscillation of tau neutrinos. Tau
neutrinos, as we have found out in our lectures, are fairly difficult to detect
because they do not stay as that flavor for long. Also, something new that I
learned was that scientists use neutrinos to measure the thorium and uranium in
the Earth’s mantle. Since we can’t physically reach the mantle, they study the
neutrinos as they go through it. This, among other fascinating experiments,
made this trip an incredible experience for me. I have enjoyed every minute of
it and I can’t wait to share my stories and knowledge. Thank you to all who
were involved!
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| In the tunnel at Gran Sasso. Photo by |
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