Union cabinet meeting has approved setting up of India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project in Bodi West Hills, Tamil Nadu.  This cabinet meeting was headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Key facts about India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project

  • It is an underground project, jointly supported by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
  • It will comprise a complex of caverns – the main cavern, which will house detector which is 130 metres long, 26 metres wide and 30 metre high.
  • Along with main cavern, there will be two smaller caverns that will be used for setting up experiments for neutrino double detector and dark matters.
  • This underground complex will be approached by a 2-kms long tunnel.
  • It will host experiments such as the neutrino-less double beta decay and the search for dark matter.
  • It also involves Inter-Institutional Centre for High Energy Physics (IICHEP) and Iron Calorimeter Detector (ICAL).
Along with project, government has also approved the construction of a 50,000 tonne magnetised iron calorimeter detector (ICAL). It will study the properties of the neutrino, in particular the mass hierarchy among different types of neutrino.

Neutrino

It is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with half-integer spin. It belongs to the lepton family.
There are three types of neutrinos: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos.