Neutrinos from the Milky Way: Icecube experiment with new results

2023-06-29 20:32:42

The Icecube observatory consists of one cubic kilometer of ice at the South Pole. The places of origin of the neutrinos found are superimposed on the band of the Milky Way in blue. Image: IceCube Collaboration (Yuya Makino)/US National Science Foundation

Astronomers have been searching for neutrinos from the Milky Way for a long time. The Icecube experiment now reports success. A conversation with Mirco Hünnefeld, the PhD student behind the discovery.

Mr. Hünnefeld, you and your colleagues have new results today of the Icecube observatory at the South Pole. What did you discover?

Sibylle Anderl

Editor in the feuilleton, responsible for the “Nature and Science” department.

We have detected neutrinos originating from our home galaxy. Neutrinos are electrically neutral elementary particles that only have a negligibly small mass. They are particularly interesting because they only interact very weakly with matter. So you can use them well to look into the depths of the universe and learn something about the objects there. It doesn’t work so well with light, for example, because light is easily absorbed by matter.