SNEWS is a cooperative effort between the world's neutrino detection experiments to spread the news that a star in our galaxy has just experienced a core-collapse event and is about to become a Type II Supernova. This project exploits the ~hours time difference between neutrinos promptly escaping the nascent supernova and photons which originate when the shock wave breaks through the stellar photosphere, to give the world a chance to get ready to observe such an exciting event at the earliest possible time. A coincidence trigger between experiments is used to eliminate potential local false alarms, allowing a rapid, automated alert.

A new experiment which will participate in SNEWS is the Helium and Lead Observatory. HALO is a new, dedicated supernova neutrino experiment being built in SNOLAB from a combination of lead and the SNO experiment's old He3 neutron counters. It is designed to be a low-maintenance, high-livetime, and long-lived experiment to complement existing, multi-purpose neutrino detectors.

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