{"id":237410,"date":"2025-02-12T16:47:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/a-cosmic-neutrino-of-unknown-origins-smashes-energy-records\/"},"modified":"2025-02-12T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:47:32","slug":"a-cosmic-neutrino-of-unknown-origins-smashes-energy-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/a-cosmic-neutrino-of-unknown-origins-smashes-energy-records\/","title":{"rendered":"A cosmic neutrino of unknown origins smashes energy records"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MAR_014_25_A_598X336_option2_V02.png?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A cosmic neutrino of unknown origins smashes energy records\" title=\"A cosmic neutrino of unknown origins smashes energy records\" \/><\/div> \r\n<br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p>A neutrino from space recently plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with an energy that blows all other known neutrinos out of the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Packing a punch of some 220 million billion electron volts, this particle was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-024-08543-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">around 20 times as energetic<\/a> as the highest energy cosmic neutrinos seen before, researchers report in the Feb. 13 <em>Nature<\/em>. The particle was glimpsed by the partially built Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey hit the jackpot,\u201d says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison and principal investigator of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. \u201cWe have been taking data with a much bigger detector for 10 years. We\u2019ve never seen such an event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"rich-text embedded-conversion-content is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article-type\/deep-end-podcast?cta=top\">\n  <\/a><\/div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article-type\/deep-end-podcast?cta=top\">\n<\/a>\n\n<style><![CDATA[\n#dynamic-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  max-width: 100%;\n  height: auto;\n  clear: both;\n}\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n\n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>Physicists are keen to catalog cosmic neutrinos because these lightweight, electrically neutral particles can cross vast stretches of space nearly undisturbed. The most energetic ones could offer unmatched insights into the powerful phenomena that spit them out, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/source-mysterious-high-energy-neutrinos\">supermassive black holes<\/a>. But netting particles that barely interact with matter requires giant telescopes made of sensors encased in ice, like IceCube, or submerged in water, like KM3NeT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/scientist-underwater-neutrino-telescope\">KM3NeT\u2019s two neutrino detectors<\/a> \u2014 one off the coast of Sicily, the other near southern France \u2014 are still under construction but already collecting data. Both contain cables hundreds of meters tall, which are strung with bundles of light sensors anchored to the seafloor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When cosmic neutrinos interact with matter in or near a KM3NeT detector, they spawn charged particles such as muons. As those muons careen through water, they give off feeble flashes of bluish light that KM3NeT\u2019s sensors can pick up. Clocking when different sensors spot this light can reveal a particle\u2019s path; the brightness of the blue hue reflects the particle\u2019s energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On February 13, 2023, the detector near Sicily was run through by an extremely energetic muon traveling nearly parallel to the horizon. At the time, only 21 of the planned 230 sensor cables were in place. Based on the muon\u2019s energy and trajectory, KM3NeT scientists determined it must have been spawned by a neutrino from space rather than a particle from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simulations suggest the neutrino\u2019s energy was around 220 petaelectron volts. The previous record holder boasted around 10 petaelectron volts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a kind of shocking situation,\u201d says KM3NeT team member Luigi Antonio Fusco, a physicist at the University of Salerno in Fisciano, Italy. It\u2019s like neutrino physicists have only ever seen fires fueled by a few sticks of kindling, \u201cand then someone comes with a flamethrower.\u201d The KM3NeT researchers estimate that they expect to see a neutrino of this caliber once every 70 years or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI definitely went in kind of skeptically,\u201d says Erik Blaufuss, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park who wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-025-00035-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">commentary on the study<\/a> in the same issue of <em>Nature<\/em>. \u201cBut they make a pretty convincing case in the paper that it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To trace the neutrino\u2019s origins, the KM3NeT team scoured data from gamma ray, X-ray and radio telescopes. Twelve objects stood out in the region of the sky from whence the neutrino came. \u201cMost of them are active galactic nuclei,\u201d Fusco says \u2014 bright cores of galaxies where supermassive black holes are guzzling gas and dust. \u201cThe problem is that there are so many,\u201d he says. \u201cYou cannot really pinpoint a single one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another possibility is that this is the first observed cosmogenic neutrino, created when ultrahigh energy cosmic rays mingle with photons from the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt this point, it\u2019s very difficult to make conclusions about the origins,\u201d says Kohta Murase, a theoretical physicist at Penn State not involved in the research. \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to rely on one event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-elements-27c40654034fbeecef6418d6adfe0794\" style=\"color:gray; margin-bottom:0px; font-size:.9rem;\">Sponsor Message<\/p>\n<!-- Tag ID: sciencenews-org_leaderboard_incontent -->\n\n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>The expansion of KM3NeT should improve its ability to nab neutrinos and pinpoint their origins. Other neutrino telescopes are also in the works, such as a planned expansion of IceCube, a proposed observatory off Canada\u2019s Vancouver Island and one under construction in the South China Sea. Those tools, Murase says, may help researchers home in on the birthplaces of neutrinos with staggeringly high energies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/cosmic-neutrino-unknown-energy-records\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A neutrino from space recently plunged into the Mediterranean Sea with an energy that blows all other known neutrinos out of the water. Packing a punch of some 220 million billion electron volts, this particle was around 20 times as energetic as the highest energy cosmic neutrinos seen before, researchers report in the Feb. 13 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MAR_014_25_A_598X336_option2_V02.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[21334,2988,3682,23989,5749,17738,26899],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237412,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237410\/revisions\/237412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}