Discovery: neutrinos from the strangest places in the universe

– We collected 80 high-energy neutrinos coming from the same direction in space, a galaxy called NGC 1068, which we know of a supermassive black hole in the middle, says Chad Finley, a particle physicist at Stockholm University The neutrino detector is built at the pole Southern, IceCube.

These particles can now reveal to us what’s going on in the regions around the black hole that you often can’t “see” because it’s embedded in gas and dust.

galactic accelerators

Around the active black hole, gas and dust circulate faster toward the center. In the process, large amounts of energy are released, which means that the region around the black hole can turn into a huge particle accelerator.

It is suspected that these galactic accelerators produce highly energetic protons and atomic nuclei. These particles penetrate all space and this phenomenon is called cosmic radiation. Even the Earth is exposed to radiation day and night without us being able to know the source of the radiation.

reveal the source

Although it is assumed that cosmic radiation originates from active black holes, it has not been possible to connect them there.

– It has been a great mystery where cosmic radiation comes from. Within a hundred years, it hasn’t been possible to pinpoint where these particles are accelerating and becoming very energetic, says Chad Finley, also part of the IceCube Collaboration, which is behind the study published this week. Sciences.

The 80 high-energy neutrinos captured by the IceCube Observatory now reveal that they formed in a galactic particle accelerator around the black hole of NGC 1068. That means cosmic rays may have their source here, too.

The task of neutrino astronomy is to identify places where particles are accelerated to high energies, and we have now already succeeded in doing so, says Chad Finley.

Play the video to see how the breakthrough in neutrino astronomy happened.