It carried an enormous amount of energy, far greater than anything made in Earth\u2019s particle accelerators, and points to a neutrino that likely came from outside our galaxy.<\/p>\n Why KM3NeT matters<\/p>\n Paschal Coyle<\/a>, a researcher at the Marseille Particle Physics Centre at CNRS (MPPC<\/a>), helps lead the KM3NeT effort. <\/p>\n His team operates part of the telescope from shore stations that listen to the detector through miles of cable.<\/p>\n \u201cKM3NeT has begun to probe a range of energy and sensitivity where detected neutrinos may originate from extreme astrophysical phenomena,\u201d Coyle explained. <\/p>\n \u201cThis first ever detection of a neutrino of hundreds of PeV opens a new chapter in neutrino astronomy and a new observational window on the Universe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Deep sea telescope sees the invisible<\/p>\n A neutrino hardly ever hits an atom, but when it does in or near the detector, it can create a charged particle that outruns light in water and emits Cherenkov radiation<\/a>. <\/p>\n KM3NeT\u2019s optical modules spot that blue light, and software reconstructs the track and energy from the pattern and timing of the flashes.<\/p>\n ARCA is tuned for higher energies and sits far below the waves where water is dark and clear. <\/p>\n The event moved almost horizontally through rock and seawater for roughly 87 miles before it lit up more than a third of the photomultipliers, leaving a clean, bright signature that matched a cosmic origin.<\/p>\n KM3NeT telescope materials<\/p>\n Each digital optical module is a pressure resistant glass sphere packed with dozens of small photomultiplier tubes. <\/p>\n Lines of these modules rise hundreds of yards from anchors on the seafloor, with cables sending time stamped signals back to shore.<\/p>\n The full KM3NeT layout includes a second detector called ORCA<\/a> that is placed about 1.5 miles deep off southern France. <\/p>\n ORCA studies how neutrinos change type as they travel, while ARCA hunts the highest energies that point back to powerful accelerators.<\/p>\n Keeping signals honest<\/p>\n Atmospheric muons<\/a> rain down from above and can mimic neutrino events, but water and rock stop most of them before they reach a detector at this depth. <\/p>\n At the energies seen here, even a surviving atmospheric muon would not cross the long path through the seabed in this direction.<\/p>\n The team also considers atmospheric neutrinos, which are real neutrinos made in cosmic ray air showers, but their numbers plunge at ultra high energies. <\/p>\n The combination of energy<\/a>, geometry, and timing points to a cosmic origin rather than a local background.<\/p>\n Chasing the source across the sky<\/p>\n Pinpointing the birthplace remains hard because the event arrived at a shallow angle and alignment uncertainties leave a patch of sky rather than a pinpoint. <\/p>\n The team searched for gamma ray sources and other flares in that region and did not find a clear match.<\/p>\n One target class is the active galactic nucleus<\/a>, a galaxy with a central black hole feeding and blasting jets, but the evidence is not firm.<\/p>\n What the numbers tell us<\/p>\n The energy from this particle was far higher than anything scientists had ever measured before. <\/p>\n For comparison, the previous record came from IceCube, a giant neutrino observatory built into the ice at the South Pole, which recorded another neutrino at just over 6 PeV.<\/p>\n IceCube is made up of thousands of sensors frozen deep in Antarctic ice, designed to spot the faint flashes of light created when neutrinos interact with atoms. <\/p>\n In 2013, it announced the first detections of PeV-level neutrinos arriving from space. <\/p>\n That discovery<\/a> proved that the universe produces neutrinos with enormous amounts of energy, well beyond anything humans can create on Earth.<\/p>\n What did KM3NeT detect?<\/p>\n The energy<\/a> is so large that it might signal a new component in the neutrino sky at the highest energies. <\/p>\n One possibility raised by the KM3NeT analysis is a cosmogenic neutrino, produced when ultra energetic cosmic rays hit the diffuse photons that fill space.<\/p>\n Another possibility is an especially efficient accelerator in a distant galaxy. If a source class is responsible, a pattern of repeat detections with similar energies and directions should begin to appear as data accumulate.<\/p>\n KM3NeT is still under construction, and this detection arrived with only a fraction of the final instrument operating. <\/p>\n As ARCA and ORCA expand, the array will catch more events and improve its angular precision to tighten the error region on the sky.<\/p>\n The Mediterranean telescope<\/a> works alongside IceCube at the South Pole and experiments on the surface which look for ultra high energy cosmic rays. <\/p>\n Together they make a network that can connect particles and photons from the same event and turn a single detection into a fuller story.<\/p>\n The study is published in Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A telescope buried deep under the sea has caught the most energetic particle of its kind ever recorded.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-155424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/a><\/p>\n