Discovery: Powerful 'ghost particle' with clues about the universe
Discovery: Powerful 'ghost particle' with clues about the universe
They're tiny, invisible, and travel across the universe. And trillions of them just flew through your body.
What are they? Neutrinos ‒ and scientists Wednesday announced the discovery of the most powerful one ever seen. Neutrinos are ghostly subatomic particles that can travel in a straight line for billions of light-years, passing unhindered through galaxies, stars and anything else in their path.
Because they rarely interact with matter and have almost no mass they are often referred to as "ghost particles."
The newly discovered neutrino's energy is estimated to be around 30 times higher than any neutrino previously detected. The result suggests that the particle came from beyond our Milky Way, although its precise origin remains to be determined.
The new research was published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.
What are neutrinos?
Difficult to detect, neutrinos are extremely tiny particles and are among the most abundant in the universe. They don't interact much with anything and travel close to the speed of light.
'Neutrinos are one of the most mysterious of elementary particles," explained Rosa Coniglione, researcher at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Italy, one of the scientists who made the discovery. "They have no electric charge, almost no mass and interact only weakly with matter. They are special cosmic messengers, bringing us unique information on the mechanisms involved in the most energetic phenomena and allowing us to explore the farthest reaches of the universe."
Although neutrinos are the second most abundant particle in the universe after photons, their weak interaction with matter makes them very hard to detect and requires enormous detectors, such as the one that made this discovery.
This particle was spotted by the Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT), a collection of light-detecting glass spheres on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, on February 13, 2023, according to Nature.
How energetic was the neutrino?
The neutrino in question was 30 times more energetic than any other neutrino detected to date, a quadrillion times more energetic than particles of light called photons and 10,000 times more energetic than particles made by the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva.
"The energy of this neutrino is exceptional," added physicist Aart Heijboer of the Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics in the Netherlands, another of the researchers.
Where do neutrinos come from?
High-energy neutrinos arise from particle collisions occurring in violent events such as a black hole eating matter or bursts of gamma rays during the explosive deaths of stars. They also can be produced by interactions between high-energy cosmic rays and the universe's background radiation.
Scientists say the study of neutrinos is still in its formative stages.
"It's basically just trying to understand what is going on in the cosmos," Heijboer said.
Contributing: Jessica Bies, The News Journal; Reuters
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