New Era of Neutrino Astronomy Begins at the South Pole

The era of neutrino astronomy has officially begun. Astrophysicists have managed to detect and record the mysterious phenomena known as cosmic neutrinos, which are nearly massless particles that stream to Earth at the speed of light from outside our solar system, striking the surface in a burst of energy that can be as powerful as a baseball pitcher's fastball.

"The era of neutrino astronomy has begun," said Gregory Sullivan, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In this particular study, the researchers observed 28 very high-energy particle events with the use of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. These events constitute the first solid evidence for astrophysical neutrinos from cosmic sources.  By studying the neutrinos that IceCube detects, the researchers can learn more about the nature of astrophysical phenomena occurring millions, or even billions of light years from Earth.

"The sources of neutrinos, and the question of what could accelerate these particles, has been a mystery for more than 100 years," said Sullivan in a news release. "Now we have an instrument that can detect astrophysical neutrinos. It's working beautifully, and we expect it to run for another 20 years."

In all, IceCube is made up of 5,160 digital optical modules suspended along 86 strings embedded in ice beneath the South Pole. It detects neutrinos through the tiny flashes of blue light, called Cherenkov light, produced when neutrinos interact in the ice. Computers then collect near-real-time data from the optical sensors and send information about interesting events north via satellite.

Since astrophysical neutrinos move in straight lines unimpeded by outside forces, they can act as pointers to the place in the galaxy where they originated. This, in turn, can tell astronomers quite a bit out our universe. The 28 events recorded so far are too few to point to any particular location, but the future looks bright for the study of neutrinos.

The findings are published in the journal Science.