Special to the Daily Press
CARLSBAD – The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant south of Carlsbad is more than just a repository for the nation’s defense-related transuranic radioactive waste, it’s also a laboratory where scientists have been working to unlock the mysteries of the universe and the world around them.
More than 2,000 feet beneath the Chihuahuan desert, in the center of a 250-million-year-old salt formation, numerous universities and research institutions are taking advantage of WIPP’s strong safety culture, open door policy and extremely low levels of natural background radiation; the key attraction separating the mine from others around the world.
Ongoing experiments in the WIPP underground include:
Enriched Xenon Observatory
Understanding the family of neutrino particles and how they interact with other matter (and among themselves) has become one of the most intensive physics research efforts ever attempted. … For the rest of the story, subscribe in print and on the web.
