In this episode of Smart Regions, we take a deep dive into Sicily's underwater laboratory that could help us better understand the origins of our universe.
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00:00 IDMAR is Europe's largest underwater telescope.
00:05 It's located here off the coast of Porto Palo di Capo Passero,
00:09 at the southern tip of Sicily.
00:11 These spherical objects look and listen out for what's happening in the Mediterranean Sea,
00:16 transmitting valuable information to researchers in real time.
00:20 IDMAR is located 100km east, at 3,500m deep,
00:28 with our researchers who bring us geophysical, volcanological, biological and, above all,
00:37 how the universe is made.
00:39 From the foot of Mount Etna in the eastern city of Catania,
00:49 the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics coordinates this European project.
00:54 Simone Biaggi belongs to the multidisciplinary research team of this laboratory,
01:00 located 3.5km below sea level,
01:04 right where the southern part of the European plate meets the northern part of the African plate.
01:09 With IDMAR, they're able to photograph and map this seismic zone.
01:14 But researchers are also trying to answer a much broader question about our universe,
01:19 by studying rare elementary particles called neutrinos that travel across land, sea and space.
01:27 Neutrinos can certainly give a very important answer to understand the origin of cosmic rays.
01:33 Cosmic rays are particles that bombard us, bombard the Earth,
01:38 and we still don't know what the origin of these cosmic rays is.
01:42 If we start measuring, seeing neutrinos coming from the universe,
01:46 this really explains to us, in a way, where we come from.
01:50 IDMAR consists of 28 lines,
01:54 each line composed of 18 spheres equipped with thousands of sensors.
02:00 The total budget is 40 million euros,
02:03 of which 19 million comes from the EU cohesion policy,
02:06 and 1 million from the region of Sicily.
02:09 In the laboratory at the port of Catania,
02:12 Giuseppina La Rosa takes care of IDMAR's ears.
02:16 Each sphere is fitted with a hydrophone.
02:19 So what have they discovered by studying the sea's murmur at such great depths?
02:25 At IDMAR we discovered that whales,
02:28 that is, capodoglians, thought they were no longer in the Mediterranean Sea,
02:33 but instead we saw that they travel at a slightly lower depth,
02:37 and so, with sound, this allows us to know where they are,
02:43 and we can also know where they are moving.
02:47 [Music]
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