REU Field Trips
Soudan Mine Trip
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| REU students tour the MINOS detector facility, half a mile underground. |
Each year, the REU group heads four hours north of Minneapolis to tour the Soudan Mine near Ely, Minnesota. Half a mile underground, three experiments, MINOS, CDMS and SOUDAN 2, have been built to study proton decay and neutrino oscillations. MINOS, which is presently being constructed, should be able to precisely set limits on neutrino oscillations using a neutrino beam created at Fermilab in Chicago.
O'Brien Observatory
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| Thong Phanh Phanthavady checks out the view through the large telescope. |
In the summer of 2002, the REU group toured the O'Brien Observatory which is located about 45 minutes east of Minneapolis. After a picnic outside of the lab, group headed inside the observatory to learn how researchers use the large telescope to study various celestial phenomena.