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The Conversation
The Conversation
Subir Sarkar, Emeritus professor, University of Oxford

First ever view of the Milky Way seen through the lens of neutrino particles

The Milky Way, as seen with neutrino particles. IceCube Collaboration / US National Science Foundation (Lily Le and Shawn Johnson) / ESO (S. Brunier)

Data collected by an observatory in Antarctica has produced our first view of the Milky Way galaxy through the lens of neutrino particles. It’s the first time we have seen our galaxy “painted” with a particle, rather than in different wavelengths of light.

The result, published in Science, provides researchers with a new window on the cosmos. The neutrinos are thought to be produced, in part, by high-energy, charged particles called cosmic rays colliding with other matter. Because of the limits of our detection equipment, there’s much we still don’t know about cosmic rays. Therefore, neutrinos are another way of studying them.

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