alienation news

Icebound telescope probes the Universe

From beneath the Antarctic ice, astronomers have been able to detect neutrinos - particles that trace the most violent events in the cosmos, many of them yet to be explained.
Sensors in the ice have detected the rare and fleeting flashes of light caused when neutrinos interact with the ice.
Researchers say it is just the beginning in the opening of a new window on the Universe. Past experience has shown that when new technologies like this are developed, many surprises emerge.
Amanda 2 (Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array - 2) is designed to look not up, but down, through the Earth to the sky of the Northern Hemisphere.
It comprises 677 glass optical modules, each the size of a bowling ball, arrayed on 19 cables set deep in the ice forming a cylinder 500 metres in height and 120 metres in diameter.
The glass modules detect streaks of light created as neutrinos collide with atoms in the ice.
The map it has produced has been unveiled at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Sydney, Australia. It provides astronomers with their first tantalizing glimpse of very high-energy neutrinos.
In the future, the hunt for the sources of cosmic neutrinos will get a boost as Amanda 2 grows in size as new strings of detectors are added. Current plans are for the detector to grow to a cubic kilometre of instrumented ice that will be known as IceCube.