How scientists are using cosmic radiation to peek inside the pyramids This competition is now closed How scientists are using cosmic radiation to peek inside the pyramids By 13 October 2016 Mehdi Tayoubi already knew his ScanPyramids project was on the right track. That was the day Tayoubi and his team met with a committee of Egyptologists to tell them about the small, previously unknown cavity they’d found in the north face of the Pyramid of Khufu, also known as the Great Pyramid of Giza. The ScanPyramids project had begun just 12 months earlier, but was already yielding promising results. Advertisement Then later, in 2017, it struck gold: a huge void was detected deep within the 4,500-year-old pyramid. Although the void’s precise orientation was unknown, Tayoubi’s team was able to confirm that it was about 30 metres long and situated above the Grand Gallery – the corridor linking the Queen’s chamber to the chamber containing Pharaoh Khufu’s sarcophagus. It was the first major new structure discovered in the pyramid since the 19th Century.