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By: Sahibzada Zaheen Iqbal
Scientists on the hunt for exploding stars and black holes at the heart of galaxies are not looking up to the skies to find them but down into the depths of the Earth.
They are searching for neutrinos which act as messengers from space to provide clues as to how the universe works. "It's a new window on the universe, a new way of looking at the universe,."
The scientists hope that the giant particle detector, known as IceCube, will solve the mystery by recording the interactions of neutrinos as they pass through the ice at close to the speed of light.
The path the neutrinos take to get to Earth is what scientists are most interested in, as this will lead them to the force which created the sub-atomic particles.
A neutrino is a neutral particle which has a very small mass, allowing it to not only pass through the Earth but through people as well.
"You hold up your finger and a hundred billion neutrinos pass through it every second from the sun," Professor Adams said.
While neutrinos are neutral, protons, which also come from out of space, are positively charged. This charge means the magnetic field bends the path of the proton effectively robbing scientists of the chance to trace the path they travelled back to the source which created them.
"We know that protons are produced out there but we can't tell where they came from," Professor Adams said.
This is why neutrinos are so intriguing. Their low mass and uninterrupted path makes them ideal candidates for tracking back to the source. And where neutrinos are produced, so are protons.
They are searching for neutrinos which act as messengers from space to provide clues as to how the universe works. "It's a new window on the universe, a new way of looking at the universe,."
The scientists hope that the giant particle detector, known as IceCube, will solve the mystery by recording the interactions of neutrinos as they pass through the ice at close to the speed of light.
Professor Adams said the neutrinos detected to date came from our own atmosphere but scientists hoped to find neutrinos from out of space, which may have formed from colliding black holes or massive supanova explosions, which take place at the end of a star's lifetime.
The path the neutrinos take to get to Earth is what scientists are most interested in, as this will lead them to the force which created the sub-atomic particles.
The path the neutrinos take to get to Earth is what scientists are most interested in, as this will lead them to the force which created the sub-atomic particles.
A neutrino is a neutral particle which has a very small mass, allowing it to not only pass through the Earth but through people as well.
"You hold up your finger and a hundred billion neutrinos pass through it every second from the sun," Professor Adams said.
While neutrinos are neutral, protons, which also come from out of space, are positively charged. This charge means the magnetic field bends the path of the proton effectively robbing scientists of the chance to trace the path they travelled back to the source which created them.
"We know that protons are produced out there but we can't tell where they came from," Professor Adams said.
This is why neutrinos are so intriguing. Their low mass and uninterrupted path makes them ideal candidates for tracking back to the source. And where neutrinos are produced, so are protons.
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