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Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of the Unknown

High Energy Neutrino Bursts

In 2013, the IceCube Astronomical Observatory in Antarctica announced (via the journal Science) the discovery of ultra high energy neutrinos coming from deep space.

The 28 high-energy neutrinos were found in data collected by the IceCube detector from May 2010 to May 2012 and analyzed for neutrino events that exceed 50 teraelectronvolts (TeV) and come from anywhere in the sky. The events cannot be explained by other neutrino fluxes, such as those from atmospheric neutrinos, nor by other high-energy events, such as muons produced by the interaction of cosmic rays in the atmosphere."

See: IceCube pushes neutrinos to the forefront of astronomy

The neutrinos are known to be extra-galactic in origin, and reach such extreme energies that, according to current physics theory, they must be being generated in the equivalent of a huge-scale natural particle accelerator of some kind - possibly black-hole driven.

There are several theories regarding how this might come about (e.g. within blazars ) but no confirmation of (or general agreement about) their source.


Also see Cosmic raysplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigCosmic rays

"Cosmic rays are typically protons or atomic nuclei of elements such as helium, carbon, or iron. The most energetic have energies more than 10 million times greater than those in the world’s most powerful atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider.
Neutrino massplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigNeutrino mass

New research has found that the neutrino has a non-zero mass - but this requires a modification to the Standard Model of particle physics. The non-zero mass also means that neutrinos cannot travel at light-speed as photons do.

"Although neutrinos were long believed to be massless, it is now known that there are three discrete neutrino masses with different tiny values, but they don't correspond uniquely to the three flavors. A neutrino created with a specific flavor is in an ass…
Gamma-ray burstsplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigGamma-ray bursts

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) were first discovered by satellites originally intended to scan for nuclear weapon detonations.They range from bursts of ten milliseconds to several hours, and also have differing energy levels. They are generally unexplained.

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