Huge unknown void found inside Khufu pyramid: int’l team

November 3, 2017

TOKYO- A huge unknown void at least 30 meters long has been discovered inside Khufu's Pyramid, the world's largest pyramid, in Egypt by utilizing cosmic ray-based imaging technology, according to an international team in which Japanese researchers played leading roles.

The discovery is expected to provide a major clue for unveiling internal structures and construction methods for the huge pyramid, build some 4,500 years ago, pundits said.

The findings were reported online in the British journal Nature on Thursday.

From Japan, researchers from Nagoya University and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, or KEK, joined the project to scan the pyramid

The project used a technique utilizing muons, a type of elementary particle generated through cosmic rays' collisions with the Earth's atmosphere.

While muons have penetration force, they are partially absorbed when they collide with high-density objects, but absorbed poorly when they pass through low-density objects or hollow spaces.

Internal structures of target objects can be seen by measuring the direction of muons and their penetration rates without damaging structures of the targets.

This technique was utilized for searching for locations of molten fuel in reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It is also used for identifying magma reservoirs in volcanoes.

Kunihiro Morishima, assistant professor at Nagoya University, and colleagues set up a detector using special films in the Queen's Chamber of the pyramid to measure muons falling to the Earth.

The void was found above the Grand Gallery, some 47 meters long, which was discovered inside the pyramid in the 19th century, and confirmed by other detectors installed by KEK and a French research institution.

"This is one of largest-scale spaces found inside a pyramid," Morishima said.

"The discovery may lead to incredible findings if there are some remains in the void," he added. Jiji Press