It sounds like every physicist's nightmare. If you want to find out the secrets of the Universe, you'll have to forget your pristine, billion-dollar particle smasher, and try murky seawater instead. You'll have to do your experiments at the bottom of the sea where your precious equipment will get covered in slime and mud. Passing shrimps might mess up your results, but heck, you'll just have to deal with it. That's what around 150 scientists and engineers have happily agreed to do. They are building a telescope called Antares on the Mediterranean sea floor off the coast of France. The team hopes to spot high-energy neutrinos, particles that could tell us something about conditions in the bustling centre of the Milky Way and about the mystifying dark matter that dominates the Universe.
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