Today in South Dakota, dignitaries, scientists and engineers will mark the start of construction of the future home of America's flagship neutrino experiment with a groundbreaking ceremony.
Participants will hold shovels and give speeches. But this will be no ordinary groundbreaking. It will take place a mile under the earth at Sanford Underground Research Facility, the deepest underground physics lab in the United States.
The groundbreaking will celebrate the beginning of excavation for the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, which will house the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. When complete, LBNF/DUNE will be the largest experiment ever built in the US to study the properties of mysterious particles called neutrinos. Unlocking the mysteries of these particles could help explain more about how the universe works and why matter exists at all.
Watch the underground groundbreaking at 2:20 p.m. Mountain Time (3:20 p.m. Central) via livestream.