First Neutrino Image of Milky Way Galaxy Captured
hubie writes:
Elusive neutrinos reveal a portrait of our galaxy unlike any before:
From visible starlight to radio waves, the Milky Way galaxy has long been observed through the various frequencies of electromagnetic radiation it emits. Scientists have now revealed a uniquely different image of our galaxy by determining the galactic origin of thousands of neutrinos - invisible "ghost particles" which exist in great quantities but normally pass straight through Earth undetected. The neutrino-based image of the Milky Way is the first of its kind: a galactic portrait made with particles of matter rather than electromagnetic energy.
The breakthrough was achieved by a collaboration of researchers using the U.S. National Science Foundation-supported IceCube Neutrino Observatory at NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The immense observatory detects the subtle signs of high-energy neutrinos from space by using thousands of networked sensors buried deep within a cubic kilometer of clear, pristine ice. The results were revealed at an event at Drexel University and published in the journal Science.
[...] "As is so often the case, significant breakthroughs in science are enabled by advances in technology," says Denise Caldwell, director of NSF's Physics Division. "The capabilities provided by the highly sensitive IceCube detector, coupled with new data analysis tools, have given us an entirely new view of our galaxy - one that had only been hinted at before. As these capabilities continue to be refined, we can look forward to watching this picture emerge with ever-increasing resolution, potentially revealing hidden features of our galaxy never before seen by humanity."
"What's intriguing is that, unlike the case for light of any wavelength, in neutrinos, the universe outshines the nearby sources in our own galaxy," says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and principal investigator at IceCube.
[...] Over many decades, scientists have revealed countless astronomical discoveries by expanding the methods used to observe the universe. Once-revolutionary advances such as radio astronomy and infrared astronomy have been joined by a new class of observational techniques using phenomena such as gravitational waves and now, neutrinos. Kurahashi Neilson says that the neutrino-based image of the Milky Way is yet another step in that lineage of discovery. She predicts neutrino astronomy will be honed like the methods that preceded it, until it too can reveal previously unknown aspects of the universe.
"This is why we do what we do," she says. "To see something nobody has ever seen, and to understand things we haven't understood."
Here is a link to an animated GIF showing the neutrino image oscillating in and out of a visible light image of the galaxy.
Journal Reference:
IceCube Collaboration, Observation of high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane, Science, 380, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adc9818
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