In the news today, the existence of cosmic neutrinos was confirmed by Antarctic scientists. I had the opportunity to work at the South Pole Station during the operation of the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, and feel lucky to have become friends with PI Albrecht Karle and his team.
A few articles about Ice Cube and related projects I helped out with there:
From The Guardian: “Existence of cosmic neutrinos confirmed by Antarctic scientists”
Antarctic scientists have confirmed the existence of cosmic neutrinos – ghostly particles that have traveled from the Milky Way and beyond. These particles carry messages from distant galaxies, and could potentially help solve several cosmic puzzles.
A good week for neutrinos: highest-power beam delivers oscillations, space delivers highest energyNeutrinos are subatomic particles created by some of nature’s most energetic and violent phenomena, such as black holes and massive exploding stars. Spotting them is difficult, however, because they have very high energy and nearly no mass. If you can catch a glimpse of them they make the ideal long-distance messenger because the information they hold is pristine, unchanged as the particles travel millions of light years through space.
Now, Albrecht Karle at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues working at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica have sorted through billions of particles that bombarded their detectors between 2010 and 2012 and identified 21 ultra high-energy muons – secondary particles created on the rare occasions that neutrinos interact with other particles.