Will the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world reveal new mysteries? This is exactly what the Explore the Great Pyramid (EGP) mission team is hoping for. In a report published online on arXiv, these scientists announced the upcoming launch of a new study of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Rising from the ground over 4,500 years ago for Pharaoh Cheops, the structure is the largest pyramid built during ancient Egypt. And this has been the subject of many studies. This made it possible to clarify its dimensions, structure and construction method. But many gray areas remain.
In 2015, the team launched the ScanPyramids project, which aimed to examine the building using new, non-destructive and non-invasive methods. A study that yielded unexpected results. In 2017, in the journal Nature, scientists reported the discovery of an extensive cavity in the heart of the pyramid, about 30 meters long and six meters high.
The space, dubbed the “big void” and confirmed by three independent experiments, has been hailed as one of the most important scientific discoveries of the year. But it also sparked controversy among some scientists, who accused the team of being rushed and exaggerating the results.
Explore the pyramid with space particles
With the help of the EGP mission, the researchers plan to scan the pyramid of Cheops again, but hope to study its structure more deeply. As with the ScanPyramids, they decided to use a cosmic particle detection technology called muography or muon tomography.
As the name suggests, this method is based on the analysis of muons, particles created by the interaction between cosmic rays and Earth’s upper atmosphere. Thus, our planet is constantly being bombarded by these unstable particles, the peculiarity of which is more or less deep penetration into matter, depending on their density.
Then, by analyzing muons, it is possible to distinguish solid zones from “vacuum zones” and thus build an image of the internal structure of the target under study. This is what was achieved during the ScanPyramids project and what will be accomplished during the EGP mission. Unless the latter intends to use a much more powerful technology.
“We plan to install a telescopic system 100 times more sensitive than the equipment that was recently used for the Great Pyramid,” the authors explain in their report. “This will allow muons to be imaged from almost any angle and for the first time will provide a true tomographic image of such a large structure.”
Since the detectors provided are particularly large, they will have to be installed outside the building and moved. “Using very large outdoor muon telescopes allows much higher resolution imaging due to the greater number of muons detected,” they add.
“Important new insight into internal structures”
The researchers performed simulations of their system. And the results provided “compelling evidence that this concept can provide important new insights into the internal structure of the Great Pyramid,” they say. The detectors will even be so sensitive that they can potentially pick up artifacts in space.
Thus, the study may not only provide new information about the large void and another potentially smaller cavity discovered, but also shed light on the debate about their potential function. The most “enthusiastic” hypotheses suggest that secret rooms could be hiding there.
The team has already received approval from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to conduct the study. However, it has yet to find sponsors and raise the necessary funds to build all the equipment, which currently only exists in prototype form.
“Once we have full funding, we expect the detectors to take about two years to build,” scientist and co-author of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Alan Bross, told LiveScience. Once the devices are designed, they will need to be placed near the building and the first observations made.
“We will need two to three years of observations to collect enough data on the muon and achieve maximum sensitivity to study the Great Pyramid,” he continued. To be continued.
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