How is this for a commute to work: drive 240km north-west of Melbourne to the outskirts of the town of Stawell. Near sheep grazing in unfenced fields, take a left and gear up: hard hat, steel-capped boots, glasses and an emergency self-rescuer – a portable oxygen source that looks like a cross between a hip flask and a hand grenade. Pass rumbling machinery and then descend 1,025 metres underground.

The office in question is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere: the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), where researchers will hunt for dark matter, the invisible substance thought to comprise about 85% of the matter in the universe.

The lab is officially open, and Guardian Australia recently visited with Prof Elisabetta Barberio, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/19/laboratory-to-study-dark-matter-opens-1km-under-australian-town-with-no-bananas-allowed

dv said:

How is this for a commute to work: drive 240km north-west of Melbourne to the outskirts of the town of Stawell. Near sheep grazing in unfenced fields, take a left and gear up: hard hat, steel-capped boots, glasses and an emergency self-rescuer – a portable oxygen source that looks like a cross between a hip flask and a hand grenade. Pass rumbling machinery and then descend 1,025 metres underground.

The office in question is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere: the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), where researchers will hunt for dark matter, the invisible substance thought to comprise about 85% of the matter in the universe.

The lab is officially open, and Guardian Australia recently visited with Prof Elisabetta Barberio, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/19/laboratory-to-study-dark-matter-opens-1km-under-australian-town-with-no-bananas-allowed

I rather doubt there are “sheep grazing in unfenced fields”. For one thing…we don’t have unfenced paddocks in this area. A little bit of romancing going on there.

dv said:

How is this for a commute to work: drive 240km north-west of Melbourne to the outskirts of the town of Stawell. Near sheep grazing in unfenced fields, take a left and gear up: hard hat, steel-capped boots, glasses and an emergency self-rescuer – a portable oxygen source that looks like a cross between a hip flask and a hand grenade. Pass rumbling machinery and then descend 1,025 metres underground.

The office in question is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere: the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), where researchers will hunt for dark matter, the invisible substance thought to comprise about 85% of the matter in the universe.

The lab is officially open, and Guardian Australia recently visited with Prof Elisabetta Barberio, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/19/laboratory-to-study-dark-matter-opens-1km-under-australian-town-with-no-bananas-allowed

Yippee.

Yes we do need a deep underground physics laboratory in Australia.
I had been hoping for physics in the coal mines near Newcastle.

Stawell comes as a complete surprise to me.