By Andrew Grant
SAVANNAH, Ga. — High-energy neutrinos from as far as the edge of the observable universe are pelting Earth from all directions, researchers announced April 7 at a meeting of the American Physical Society. The conclusion is based on a new analysis of data from IceCube, the enormous underground experiment near the South Pole that detected the first high-energy space-borne neutrinos in 2013.
“It’s a very important step,” says Keith Bechtol, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the research. “IceCube neutrinos open a window into the very distant and high-energy universe that is extremely difficult to access by any other means.”