Project Urania will oversee the installation and commissioning of an industrial facility at
Inside a combined object within a projectUrania (named after the Greek muse of astronomy), scientists will extract the argon, purify it and ship it to the Laboratorio Nazionale Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. There it will be used to find answers to some of the universe's biggest mysteries.
To begin with, in Colorado, scientists will monitorextraction and processing of gaseous argon found in the southwestern drilling area. It is operated by Kinder Morgan, a Houston-based drilling and pipeline company. The facility will exist as a side function of the Do Canyon plant, which is already extracting CO₂ from the Earth's mantle as part of natural gas production.
It contains a small amountlow-level radioactive argon, which becomes a by-product in the production of natural gas. However, scientists can use it for their own purposes. Radioactive argon can be useful for use inside a low background particle detector.
After argon is separated from carbon dioxideat the Kinder Morgan site, it will be sent in high-pressure cylinders to Sardinia. There it will undergo further processing and finally travel to the LNGS for injection into the DarkSide-20k underground particle detector. It will run for ten years starting in 2025,
Once the argon has been liquefied, it can bewill use LNGS at the research site for particle detection. According to the researchers, in this way scientists hope to “piece together evidence for the existence of dark matter in the Universe” and detect neutrinos from astrophysical sources.
Argon (abbreviated Ar) is one of the five “noblegases”, it has no color, smell and taste. As one of the most abundant elements on Earth, argon is found almost everywhere. Scientists can easily extract it from the atmosphere. However, researchers are looking for a specific gas in Colorado - almost 100% argon-40, which has been deep underground since the formation of the Earth.
Using gas extracted from a conventional plant, scientistshope to discover signs of dark matter in the Universe. This will explain what this mysterious substance is, how it behaves and why it exists at all.