Lab opens in a former gold mine 1km below Stawell

A new science lab has opened a kilometre below the ground in regional Victoria.

The first stage of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory officially opened in a former gold mine today.

In the lab scientists will use state-of-the-art technology to try and detect dark matter — which is theorised to be an invisible and unknown substance that makes up approximately 85 per cent of the mass of the universe, but has never been detected.

Senior physics lecturer at RMIT, Dr Gail Iles, says it’s important that the dark matter detection facility is deep below the Earth’s surface.

“The reason they want to build this thing as deep underground as they can — and it’s 1km deep so it takes a half an hour in a little buggy to get down there — it’s to remove all of the other kind of signals that you would get on the surface of the Earth,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“On the surface of the Earth we’re being bombarded by radiation from space all the time, and there’s all kinds of other signals.”

Press PLAY below to hear what the lab will be doing