Baikal-GVD (Gigaton
Volume Detector) in Lake
Baikal

• The Baikal-GVD is a part of three largest neutrino detectors in the world. The other two are IceCube at the South Pole and ANTARES in the Mediterranean Sea.
• Its mission to study in detail the elusive fundamental particles called neutrinos and to possibly determine their sources.
• It might help in understanding the origins of the universe.
• An underwater telescope such as the GVD is designed to detect high-energy neutrinos that may have come from the Earth’s core, or could have been produced during nuclear reactions in the Sun.
• Lake Baikal is a rift lake located in southern Siberia.
• Largest freshwater lake by volume in the world.

Why in news?

Scientists from Russia have launched one of the world’s biggest underwater neutrino telescopes called the Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector) in the waters of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake situated in Siberia.