#snolab

SNO+ | Sudbury Neutrino Observatory [Canada, 2025 | SNOLAB]

Scientists work on the deck of the DEAP-3600 dark matter detector. Photography by Guillaume Simoneau (simoneauguillaume.com).

“SNOLAB places Canada at the forefront of the field of particle astrophysics,” says Art McDonald, a particle astrophysicist at Queen’s University. In 2015, McDonald co-won the Nobel Prize in physics, honouring research at the Sudbury observatory that led to the unexpected discovery that neutrinos possess mass, which opened up exciting lines of inquiry. Investigators are expanding their sights, mining for data on dark matter, the gravitational glue that holds galaxies together.

Science North!!!! I had heard so much about Science North, and we had been seeing their booths set up all across northern Ontario. And I was not disappointed. We had an easy set up in “the cavern”, which looked exactly as it sounds like. A large room underground, with natural rock walls. The amazing architecture complemented their exhibits perfectly. I loved that Science North is also an accredited zoo, with beavers, porcupines, bats, frogs, turtles and more! The whole team had such a fun time exploring the science centre. 

Did I mention that Science North is located right on Ramsey Lake?! Gorgeous location that we were luckily enough to explore by waterski boat! We spent our whole day off on the water, learning how to waterski, wakesurf and knee board. Of course then we had to spend the whole night recovering with a hot tub/sauna/hot tub/pool/sauna/pool/hot tub/sauna/hot tub/pool combo. Not sure I got the complete order right. Here are some photos of Nick learning to wake surf and knee board!

And in case that wasn’t enough, Sudbury still had more to offer us! The whole crew got the opportunity to go to SNO lab. A Nobel Prize winning lab that is 2 km underground in an active nickel mine. Such a neat experience to be able to go underground with the miners, then walk a kilometre to the clean lab where we had to shower and put on clean clothes to even enter the lab! Especially fun that we went underground with more from our Innovation 150 team that travelled all the way from the Perimeter Institute as well as our Life Hacks contest winner! We weren’t allowed to bring our phones down to take photos, but here are a few from my action camera:

In the SNO+ cavern, about 9,600 photomultiplier tubes mounted on a geodesic sphere detect neutrino activity. Photography by Guillaume Simoneau (simoneauguillaume.com).

With more than 500 scientists collaborating - drawn from 78 institutions and 17 countries - the enterprise first took shape in 1984, and construction of the SNO detector began in 1990 in the active Creighton Mine. SNOLAB is working to address the most fundamental questions in science: How does the sun burn? Of what is our universe composed and how did it evolve? What are the most basic building blocks of matter?