A Frozen Window to the Universe
By Carlos A. Arguelles Delgado
The IceCube Observatory provides a glimpse of the unseen.
This Article From Issue
July-August 2023
Volume 111, Number 4
Page 226
Every new way of looking at the universe opens previously unknown areas of science. The first optical telescopes allowed astronomers to chart the movement of planets and moons, which helped Isaac Newton formulate his law of universal gravitation. Since then, other kinds of telescopes have enabled us to see invisible forms of light—including infrared, x-rays, and radio waves—that have revealed newborn stars, black holes, and even the faint afterglow of the Big Bang.
QUICK TAKE
- Neutrinos are lightweight particles that rarely interact with other matter, allowing them to travel for millions of light-years across the universe.
- IceCube is a telescope at the South Pole that can detect these ghostly neutrinos, enabling scientists to trace their origins in distant galaxies.
- Studying how neutrinos change their “flavor” during their journey across the cosmos is helping to test new theories on quantum gravity and the origin of neutrinos’ mass.
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