The director of the Sudbury Neutrino Project has won a prestigious science award.

Queen's University physics Prof. Arthur McDonald was awarded the 2003 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering on Nov. 25.

The prize guarantees he will receive $1 million in research funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Arthur McDonald

An international team of researchers working at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory used heavy water in a mine two kilometres underground to probe the inside of atoms.

• FROM JUNE 18, 2001: Canadian observatory weighs elusive subatomic particles

McDonald helped design and build the experiment to detect and distinguish all three kinds of neutrinos – elusive subatomic particles.

The observatory must be far underground because at the Earth's surface other particles drown out the neutrinos.

The SNO team concluded that electron neutrinos produced by the sun morphed into the other forms en route to Earth.

The findings showed neutrinos have a mass, confirming theories about what happens at the core of the sun.

NSERC's Herzberg Medal honours the late Gerhard Herzberg, Canada's 1971 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. It recognizes excellence and influence of research contributions.