Construction has begun in South Dakota on an incredible international experiment to understand the mysterious force known as neutrinos. The first shovelful was dug on July 21 at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, an event that was attended by scientists and dignitaries from all around the world.

It’s being called the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, and it will house the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will take 10 years to construct and will be operated by 1,000 scientists from 30 countries. Fermilab will be responsible for beaming neutrinos from 800 miles away through the Earth to the Sanford Lab, where a detector will catch them. Video that explains the lab is embedded at the bottom of this post.

This will be the largest such experiment build in the United States to study this mysterious particle. Breakthroughs with neutrinos could help scientists unravel the mysterious of the universe itself.

“On Friday, July 21, a new era of physics in the United States will officially begin,” the statement reads. “That’s when a group of dignitaries will join scientists, engineers and others from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Sanford Underground Research Facility and their partners around the world nearly a mile under the earth to break ground on a massive global physics experiment. Once the first shovel full of earth is turned, crews will be ready to excavate more than 800,000 tons of rock—approximately the weight of eight aircraft carriers—to create huge underground caverns for the assembly of enormous particle detectors, all to better understand a mysterious particle called a neutrino.”