Alberta scientists help unlock secrets of space
TRACING NEUTRINO
EDMONTON • Canadian scientists are part of an international team that has for the first time tracked a tiny, high-energy twist of matter to its source in deep space.
University of Alberta astronomer Greg Sivakoff says tracing a single neutrino to a black hole four billion light-years distant will give researchers a whole new way to probe the universe’s most exotic secrets — what astronomers call multimessenger astronomy.
“It’s like sitting down to a good meal,” said Sivakoff, one of five Canadians who are part of the team.
“Multimessenger astronomy is the beginning of us sitting down to the meal and doing more than just looking at it. We’re beginning to have more than one sense.”
The story begins last Sept. 22 at the Icecube observatory in Antarctica, a cubic kilometre of solid ice interlaced with thousands of sensors to detect subatomic particles.
That day, scientists detected an evanescent flash of blue light caused by a particle called a muon. This muon was special for two reasons.
First, it carried a huge amount of energy — about 20 times as much energy as that generated in the largest man-made particle accelerator ever built. Second, it came from below, not above.
Like a forensics team tracing the path of a bullet, scientists were able to combine data from different sensors within Icecube to deduce the original path of the neutrino.
“Every time we open up a new window into the universe, we learn new things — not just things we expected,” Sivakoff said. “Oftentimes, those things we didn’t expect go on to be the biggest discoveries.
“It’s humbling.”
The discoveries were published Thursday in the journal Science.