The IceCube project at the South Pole has melted eighty-six holes over 1.5 miles deep in the Antarctic icecap for use as astronomical observatories. The project recently discovered a flux of neutrinos reaching us from the cosmos, with energies more than a million times those of the neutrinos produced at accelerator laboratories. These neutrinos are astronomical messengers from some of the most violent processes in the universe--giant black holes gobbling up stars in the heart of quasars and gamma-ray bursts, the biggest explosions since the Big Bang.
Francis Halzen, Gregory Breit Professor and Hilldale Professor of Physics at UW-Madison and the principal investigator of IceCube, discusses the IceCube telescope and highlights its first scientific results, March 23, 2016 as part of the Department of Physics' Bethe Lecture Series.
- Tags
-