ANTARES

Off the coast of Toulon, France, the ANTARES neutrino telescope spent 16 years anchored 2.5 kilometres beneath the Mediterranean Sea, using the deep, dark water itself as a detector for particles from space.

About ANTARES

ANTARES stands for Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch project. It was built to detect and trace the direction of neutrinos, ghostly particles that travel largely unimpeded from cosmic sources, arriving from the Southern Hemisphere of the sky. It operated as a recognised CERN experiment and worked alongside the South Pole's IceCube detector, which observes neutrinos from both hemispheres, as well as nearby Mediterranean projects like the Greek NESTOR and Italian NEMO telescopes.

History

ANTARES took data for 16 years before its run ended in February 2022.

Location & getting there

The detector itself sits 2.5 kilometres below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Toulon in southern France; there is no surface structure or visitor site at the location itself.

Visiting ANTARES

Because ANTARES is a submerged scientific instrument rather than a building, there is no public visitor site at its location. Those interested in the project should look to the participating research institutions for information on outreach events or exhibitions.

See your named star from here

ANTARES was built to trace faint particles back to precise points in the sky, the same principle behind the coordinates attached to every star we register. If you've named a star, you can find its exact position in our star catalogue.