A sophisticated experiment buried under Antarctica is tracing neutrinos to their extraterrestrial origin.
The center of the galaxy NGC 1068 where neutrinos may originate, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.Deep under the South Pole sits an icebound forest of wiring called IceCube. It’s no cube: IceCube is a hexagonal formation of kilometer-deep holes in the ice, drilled with hot water and filled with electronics. Its purpose is to pick up flickers of neutrinos—ghostly little particles that often come from space and phase through Earth with hardly a trace.
Finding neutrinos is already hard; finding where they come from is orders of magnitude harder. Identifying a neutrino origin involves painstaking data analysis that can take years to complete. That black hole produces a torrent of what astrophysicists call cosmic rays. Despite their name , cosmic rays are actually ultra-energized protons and atomic nuclei hurtling through the universe at nearly the speed of light.
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