#Tag · bonfire.cafe

Excited to share my first #SpaceAustralia feature article for 2026 about an exciting and ambitious project that is unfolding 1km below the surface in regional Victoria.

Last year, I had the incredible opportunity to visit the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) with Dr Katie Mack and explore the ambitious efforts of the SABRE South experiment. Shielded from cosmic rays by a kilometre of rock, this lab offers the ideal conditions to search for the faint whispers of dark matter, which still accounts for 25% of all matter in the Universe—and yet remains completely undetected.

Check out the article (and yes, check out our funky boots in the clean room!) and keep a lookout for exciting news of the detectors switching on later in 2026.

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/australias-dark-matter-quest

📸 F. Morrison / SUPL

#DarkMatter #ParticlePhysics #Astronomy #Astrodon #CosmicRays

4 media

Two people: Dr Katie Mack and Rami Mandow, standing outside the entry door to the SUPL facility. Both are wearing a high-vis vest, helmet, glasses.

A large, empty room inside an underground mining facility. The walls are lined with a special paint and feature running pipes and scaffolding. There is also a crane at the top.

SUPL door sign: Completion of Stage 1 of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory was officially celebrated on Friday 19 August 2022. The facily was built on the lands of the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawarjali, Wergaia, and Jupagulk peoples, and we are proud to acknowledge their continue custodianship of these lands and waters. The facility was funded with the support of the Australian Government and the Victorian Government. The facily was constructed with the support of the Stawell Gold Mines. — A large, empty room inside an underground mining facility. The walls are lined with a special paint and feature running pipes and scaffolding. There is also a crane at the top. SUPL door sign: Completion of Stage 1 of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory was officially celebrated on Friday 19 August 2022. The facily was built on the lands of the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawarjali, Wergaia, and Jupagulk peoples, and we are proud to acknowledge their continue custodianship of these lands and waters. The facility was funded with the support of the Australian Government and the Victorian Government. The facily was constructed with the support of the Stawell Gold Mines.

Aerial shot of the Stalwell goldmine showing the entire facility including the waste water pool, the processing mill and quarry.

Two people: Dr Katie Mack and Rami Mandow, standing in the large main chamber of the SUPL facility. They are wearing high-vis vests and protective boots in the clean room.

Australia’s Dark Matter Quest | Spaceaustralia

A kilometre beneath the surface of regional Victoria, scientists are preparing to switch on one of Australia’s most ambitious physics experiments. Nearing completion, the facility will soon host a sensitive dark matter detector designed to search for elusive particles thought to make up a quarter of the Universe’s mass. Dr Katie Mack and Rami Mandow visited the site to see the project taking shape.

CosmicRami

@CosmicRami@aus.social · 7 days ago

Excited to share my first #SpaceAustralia feature article for 2026 about an exciting and ambitious project that is unfolding 1km below the surface in regional Victoria.

Check out the article (and yes, check out our funky boots in the clean room!) and keep a lookout for exciting news of the detectors switching on later in 2026.

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/australias-dark-matter-quest

📸 F. Morrison / SUPL

#DarkMatter #ParticlePhysics #Astronomy #Astrodon #CosmicRays

4 media

Australia’s Dark Matter Quest | Spaceaustralia

Universität Innsbruck

@uniinnsbruck@social.uibk.ac.at · 2 weeks ago

⚛️ New opportunities for basic research: Helium nanodroplets make it possible to simulate the prevailing conditions in outer space. Physicists from Innsbruck and Greifswald have now succeeded in storing these droplets in an ion trap for up to one minute. This extends the experimental time window for these ultra-cold “mini-laboratories” by a factor of 10,000.

🆕 https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/newsroom/2025/ion-trap-enables-one-minute-in-the-nanocosmos/

📖 https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/yr98-h791

#Physics #PhysicalReviewLetters #IonPhysics #ParticlePhysics

Ion trap enables one minute in the nanocosmos

At the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics at the University of Innsbruck, a research team has succeeded for the first time in storing electrically charged helium nanodroplets in an ion trap for up to one minute. This extends the time window for experiments with these extremely cold "mini-laboratories" by a factor of 10,000 compared to previous methods - and opens up new possibilities for basic research in physics and chemistry.

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More from

Universität Innsbruck

@uniinnsbruck@social.uibk.ac.at · 4 weeks ago

⚛️ News from quantum physics: So-called Anyons are exotic particles that are neither bosons nor fermions. A team from Innsbruck, Brussels, and Paris has found a simple yet powerful way to detect anyons—by swapping two spins.

🆕 https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/newsroom/2025/a-simple-spin-swap-reveals-exotic-anyons/

📖 https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/2np8-mp39

#quantumPhysics #quantum #particlePhysics #physics

Chris Walter boosted

Ele Willoughby, PhD

@minouette@spore.social · last month

For the #PrinterSolstice2526 prompt ‘even’ -the number of quarks in a meson, a type of particle first observed & published by Bibha Chowdhuri (1913-1991) & her supervisor D.M. Bose in extensive air showers from cosmic rays. My portrait shows her, a mountain on which she gathered her data & a schematic of the cascade of particles we find in cosmic rays.

Born in Kolkata, her family’s Bramohist faith quite unusually 🧵
#womenInSTEM #histsci #particlePhysics #physics #cosmicRays #mastoArt

As described this is my linocut portrait of Bibha Chowdhuri, with a mountain range featuring Sandpakphu in front, sky with schematic of an extensive air shower behind her. She is a serious young Indian woman printed in purple ink with head and shoulders at a slight angle. The mountains are in a gradient of dark to light blue as we rise from the bottom of the page. The sky is a vivid gradient of colour like at dawn with a yellow umber through orange, pink, magenta and blue as it rises behind her and the mountains. Carved away in white is a near vertical line at the top branching repeatedly like a tree into straight, dashed and wiggly lines to indicate a particle cascade.

Ele Willoughby, PhD

@minouette@spore.social · last month

Born in Kolkata, her family’s Bramohist faith quite unusually 🧵
#womenInSTEM #histsci #particlePhysics #physics #cosmicRays #mastoArt

alcinnz boosted

Paul Sutton (zleap)

@zleap@techhub.social · 3 months ago

Interesting

https://physicsworld.com/a/using-ai-to-find-new-particles-at-the-lhc/

#Physics #Science #LHC #ParticlePhysics #Ai

Paul Sutton (zleap)

@zleap@techhub.social · 3 months ago

Interesting

https://physicsworld.com/a/using-ai-to-find-new-particles-at-the-lhc/

#Physics #Science #LHC #ParticlePhysics #Ai

Freya Blekman

@freyablekman@fediscience.org · 6 months ago

It is not always easy to find a good fit at an excellent research institution. If you are considering doing a #PhD or #Postdoc in #mathematics #particlephysics #theoreticalphysics or #astrophysics we have you sorted in Hamburg. This workshop is a way to get to know our Cluster of Excellence and #UniHamburg/#DESY groups on those topics, just before we start hiring this year. Check it out!