IceCube Neutrino Observatory
19-03-2024
1 min read
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Overview:
Scientists using data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica believe they have potentially found the first evidence for astrophysical tau neutrinos, called "ghost particles"
About IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- It is a device at the earth’s South Pole that detects subatomic particles called neutrinos.
- It was built and is maintained by the IceCube Collaboration, which consists of many universities worldwide led by the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
- It consists of thousands of sensors buried more than 1.4 km beneath the ice plus multiple detectors above the surface.
- IceCube is the world’s biggest ‘neutrino telescope’; its sensors are distributed throughout a cubic kilometre of ice.
- Working
- When a neutrino interacts with the ice surrounding the sensors, it may produce some charged particles and some radiation.
- The sensors detect the radiation to infer the detection of a neutrino and use the radiation’s properties to understand more about the particle.
- Neutrinos come in different types. IceCube can identify some of them in real-time.
- For others, IceCube collects data for many years and scientists then comb through them to find neutrino interaction events.
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Q1) What are Neutrinos?
Neutrinos are mysterious particles, produced copiously in nuclear reactions in the Sun, stars, and elsewhere. They also "oscillate"-- meaning that different types of neutrinos change into one another.A neutrino is a fermion that interacts only via weak interaction and gravity.
Source: Astronomers detect seven potential ‘ghost particles’ that passed through planet