The two observed events from August 2011 (left panel) and January 2012 (right panel). Each sphere represents a DOM (digital optical module). Colors represent the arrival times of the photons where red indicates early and blue late times. The size of the spheres is a measure for the recorded number of photoelectrons. Credit: arXiv:1304.5356 [astro-ph.HE]
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Antarctic research station IceCube are reporting that they've detected the highest ever energy neutrinos ever observed. In their paper they've uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the team describes how in analyzing sensor data over the period 2010 to 2012 they found evidence of two neutrino induced events that were on an order of ten times the energy of any previous event.
Neutrinos are of particular importance to researchers because they have no charge and very little mass. This means they are free to travel through space without having their paths changed due to gravitational or magnetic forces, a trait that makes them very valuable for one day locating their source. The two neutrinos recorded at IceCube (dubbed Bert and Ernie) are of particular relevance because the odds are very good that they came from the far reaches of space, rather than as a by-product of a collision between cosmic rays and Earth's atmosphere—the researchers give it a confidence level of 2.8 sigma—meaning that the two neutrinos are very likely the first detected from outside the solar system since 1987, when detectors recorded neutrinos believed to have come from a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Phys.org: Researchers at IceCube detect record energy neutrinos
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