MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) Experiment

The MINOS experiment, based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) near Chicago, studies the properties of neutrinos. MINOS started taking data in 2005.

The experiment fires a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab to a detector placed 800m below the surface in a former iron mine in Soudan, in northern Minnesota, about 450 miles from the source. The experiment measures how the neutrinos travelling at close to the speed of light change, or oscillate, from one form to another during their 0.0025 second journey from Fermilab to the detector. By controlling the energy of the neutrino beam and comparing the neutrinos leaving Fermilab with those arriving at the detector, physicists will be able to place tight constraints on the possible masses of the three different types of neutrino.