Science News - USA (2022-04-23)

22 SCIENCE NEWS | April 23, 2022

HIP INSTITUTE G. BONOMI

ET AL/PROGRESS IN PARTICLE AND NUCLEAR PHYSICS

2020; T. TIBBITTS

FEATURE

I

nside Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza lies a

mysterious cavity, its void unseen by any living

human, its surface untouched by modern hands.

But luckily, scientists are no longer limited by

human senses.

To feel out the contours of the pyramid’s

un explored interior, scientists followed the paths

of tiny subatomic particles called muons. Those

particles, born high in Earth’s atmosphere, hurtled

toward the surface and burrowed through the pyr-

amid. Some of the particles imprinted hints of what

they encountered on sensitive detectors in and

around the pyramid. The particles’ paths revealed

the surprising presence of the hidden chamber,

announced in 2017 (SN: 11/25/17, p. 6).

That stunning discovery sparked plans among

physicists to use muons to explore other archae-

ological structures. And some researchers are

using the technique, called muography, to map out

volcanoes’ plumbing. “You can see inside the vol-

cano, really,” says geophysicist Giovanni Leone of

Universidad de Atacama in Copiapó, Chile. That

internal view could give scientists more informa-

tion about how and when a volcano is likely to erupt.

An invisible rain of the

subatomic particles

called muons pierces

structures on Earth’s

surface, including the

Great Pyramid of Giza.

Those muons can help

map out the chambers

within the pyramid and

have even revealed a

mysterious hidden void.

Subatomic particles offer special access into

pyramids, volcanoes and more By Emily Conover

MUONS

OPEN

DOORS

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