Gran Sasso Laboratory

Today was the day we had all been waiting for…we were going to tour Gran Sasso. The interesting lectures about the experiments were becoming reality. Rachel could barely contain herself as we drove towards the lab. (The cappuccino she had at Hotel Giampy probably didn’t help the situation.) She was about to see one of her favorite experiments and she was like a kid in a candy store. However, we were all ecstatic to see what the Gran Sasso Laboratory had in store for us that day. We met Francesco in the morning at our hotel to drive us up to the lab. Although we were about to see some incredible science that day, we became mystified at the sun roof Francesco had on his car. I am sure he thought we were just crazy Americans.

After the sun roof discovery, we took the shuttle. Gran Sasso Laboratory was a lot different from Sanford Underground Lab we realized. Instead of going down a scary shaft for 15 minutes, we had a nice comfortable car ride into the mountain to see the lab. We were given our ONE (just one) item of PPE, a hardhat, and journeyed inside the lab following our tour guide. The first experiments we saw were Opera, Dark Side, and Borexino. We were able to climb a spiraling staircase to get a bird’s eye view of the experiments. The amount of camera flashes as we passed each experiment was almost past the point where it was ridiculous, ALMOST. As our tour guide led us into the cold dripping mountain, we passed the VIP experiment, where of course we had to pause and take a group picture. FOR SCIENCE!

We were lucky to go into the LUNA experiment, an experiment exploring the fusion reactions inside of stars. This was my personal favorite experiment because we were able to see the accelerator close up, as well as speak to the scientist working there at the time.

We concluded our interesting and informative tour at the XENON experiment. We were all amazed at the incredible science and engineering happening at Gran Sasso National Laboratory.

We took the shuttle back to Hotel Giampy, where we decided to attempt to take the tram up the mountain. When I say attempt, I mean we waited for the bus for 30 minutes and decided we wouldn’t make it. So, the Davis-Bahcall scholars began to journey once again through the town of Assergi. Despite taking hundreds of pictures the past two days, we were trying to capture the beauty of the mountains and the town of Assergi. We ended our eventful day with our last dinner at Hotel Giampy, stuffing ourselves with pizza and pasta until we couldn’t eat any more. Tired and exhausted from all the eating, walking, and learning we had accomplished that day, we trudged up the flights of stairs to our beds, disappointed we were already leaving Assergi and Gran Sasso tomorrow. 

- Lia Meirose, Sturgis, SD