On July 13, Sanford Underground Research Facility hosted its 16th annual Neutrino Day.
SURF, built at Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is the deepest science laboratory in the United States. Research located underground at SURF includes experiments designed to study dark matter and, of course, the particles of the day: neutrinos.
The free, citywide Neutrino Day science festival featured tours, science activities and exhibits for all ages, talks and performances, and live video chats with engineers underground.
A child listens to a communication device brought by Colorado State University's hands-on science program, "Little Shop of Physics."
PhD student Linda Di Felice, one of three presenters who gave a lecture titled Dark Matter 101: The LUX-ZEPLIN crash course, spreads her arms in front of the crowd at the Homestake Opera House.
Children enjoy science learning and play with the "Little Shop of Physics."
Visitors enjoy SURF's ethnobotonical garden, Čhaŋgléška Wakȟáŋ, defined by the lab as their "effort to explore the connections between science, art, culture, and humanistic inquiry in the Black Hills."
The South Dakota Mines chapter of the Society of Physics Students come to Neutrino Day each year to make liquid nitrogen ice cream.
Volunteers from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which manages the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment under construction at SURF, talked to visitors about neutrinos.
2024 Davis-Bahcall Scholar Mackenzie Hollenbeck describes a VR image of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment caverns to a young Neutrino Day attendee.
A trio of Neutrino Day attendees, two human and one canine, check out a model of SURF's underground inside the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center.
Two volunteers broadcast live from Neutrino Day.
A crowd watches a live feed from underground at the lab.
Neutrino Day volunteers wave from above the crowd.
SURF's Visitor Center is located next to the Homestake Gold Mine Open-Cut.
During the Neutrino Day festivities, the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology launched a weather balloon.
Two Neutrino Day SURF volunteers smile while holding the Neutrino Day selfie frame.
Cars line Main Street in Lead on Neutrino Day.
Editor's note: A version of this photo essay was originally published by Sanford Underground Research Facility.
