- 4170 - NEUTRINOS - seeing instead of using photons? We all know that are eyes see by receiving light “photons”. “Neutrinos” are subatomic particles that have almost no mass, like photons. What if we could “see” using neutrinos instead of photons?
-------------- 4170 - NEUTRINOS - seeing instead of using photons?
- Scientists have
revealed a uniquely different image of our galaxy by determining the galactic
origin of thousands of neutrinos.
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.
It is a galactic portrait made with particles of matter rather than
electromagnetic energy, light.
-
- From visible
starlight to radio waves, the Milky Way galaxy has long been observed through
the various frequencies of electromagnetic radiation it emits. The “IceCube Neutrino Observatory” at
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica was used to observe through
neutrinos.
-
- This 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.
-
- At this point in
human history, we're the first ones to see our galaxy in anything other than
light. 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.
-
- Unlike the case
for light of any wavelength, in neutrinos, the universe outshines the nearby
sources in our own galaxy. The even more
ambitious goal is determining where they came from.
-
- When neutrinos
happen to interact with the ice beneath IceCube, those rare encounters produce
faint patterns of light, which IceCube can detect. Some patterns of light are
highly directional and point clearly to a particular area of the sky, allowing
researchers to determine the source of the neutrinos. Such interactions were
the basis for the discovery of neutrinos that came from another galaxy 47
million light-years away.
-
- Other interactions
are far less directional and produce cascading "fuzz balls of light"
in the clear ice. Scientists developed a machine-learning algorithm that
compared the relative position, size and energy of more than 60,000 such
neutrino-generated cascades of light recorded by IceCube over 10 years.
-
- When they fed the
real IceCube-provided data to the algorithm, what emerged was a picture showing
bright spots corresponding to locations in the Milky Way that were suspected to
emit neutrinos. Those locations were in places where observed gamma rays were
thought to be the byproducts of collisions between cosmic rays and interstellar
gas, which theoretically should also produce neutrinos.
-
- 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,
seeing with neutrinos.
-
- The neutrino-based
image of the Milky Way is yet another step in discovery. Neutrino astronomy
will be honed like the methods that preceded it, until it too can reveal
previously unknown aspects of the universe.
-
-
September 27, 2023 NEUTRINOS -
seeing instead of using photons? 4170
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Thursday, September 28, 2023 ---------------------------------
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