Astronomers trace the source of a high-energy particle that has slammed into the Earth

Astronomers may have discovered the origin in the deep space of a mysterious high energy particle that plummeted across the Earth last year. The tiny particle, known as the neutrino, appears to come from a hyperactive black hole located 4 billion light-years away. This is the first time that researchers highlight the possible origin of any of these high energy neutrinos, which allows scientists to better understand the objects that produce these strange light particles that fill the Universe.

In September, researchers working near the South Pole detected the presence of a very high energy neutrino in the Antarctic ice. These fast-moving particles often slide through objects like our planet without ever leaving a trace of their presence. But this visiting neutrino was a rare breed: it hit the ice, leaving a trace that researchers could measure with their observatory, IceCube. The team then quickly mobilized to return home on the parcel of sky where the particle was coming from.

In this patch, they found a possible culprit for the neutrino: an overactive galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center. This kind of galaxy is actually known as a blazar, which means that its black hole nucleus spits out radiation (and other things) in the direction of the Earth. The discovery, detailed today in two articles of Science is an obvious proof that the neutrino was born from this black hole. It's huge since astronomers have never been able to locate the potential birthplace of such a high-energy neutrino before. But now, blazars could be good places to look for neutrinos like this one in the future

If we know d & # Where neutrinos come from, scientists might be able to use them as tools to explore the cosmos. Neutrinos are thought to occur within some of the most extreme objects in the universe, such as dying stars, black holes and colliding galaxies. By confirming the creators of neutrinos, astronomers could then use these particles in the same way that we use X-rays to look inside our own body. "By searching for neutrinos, we can learn more about what's going on inside these objects," Dawn Williams, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Toronto. Alabama and one of the members of the IceCube team who made the discovery, explains:] The Verge . "This may add to our knowledge of these objects, which are still a subject of study."

Image: IceCube / NASA

Harnessing However, the power of neutrinos is difficult because they are considered some of the most stealthy particles in the world. # 39; universe. They are the lightest fundamental particle we know, with a mass just above zero. But unlike other particles, like electrons or protons, neutrinos do not have charge, so they are not affected by things like magnetic fields. In fact, they are hardly affected by anything. Neutrinos can travel in a straight line across the Universe, covering vast distances, without deviating from their trajectory. They are so small that they just pass through planets, stars and galaxies like little ghosts. They are passing through you now; It is estimated that trillions of neutrinos pass through the body of a person every second

But what neutrinos lack in terms of size, they compensate for energy. Astronomers believe that neutrinos are created during fiercely energetic processes like nuclear fusion reactions, which send these particles outward at a speed close to the speed of light. Everything, from explosions of stars to nuclear bombs, can thus create these little elusive objects. It is also believed that most neutrinos in the Universe were created just after the Big Bang and that they now permeate the cosmos.

Before today, scientists knew three different sources of neutrinos that regularly hit the Earth. We have captured these particles from within our Sun, and we can sometimes measure those from our own atmosphere. Other types of energetic particles from outside our galaxy, known as cosmic rays, peel our atmosphere, break up molecules into pieces, and produce neutrino showers on the Earth. And just once in 1987, astronomers detected an excess of neutrinos from a supernova just outside our galaxy.

Since neutrinos are so stealthy, you need a very special detector to find these particles. One of the best facilities is the IceCube Neutrino Observatory near the South Pole. It is made up of thousands of photosensitive tubes integrated into the ice cap capable of measuring the very rare neutrinos that collide with the Earth. "They have a very low probability of interaction," says Erik Blaufuss, professor of physics at the University of Maryland and a member of the IceCube Discovery Team The Verge . "That's why we have to build such a big instrument at the South Pole." From time to time, a neutrino will not pass through our planet, but it will chipping a part of an atom in the Antarctic ice. When this happens, it destroys the nucleus of the atom, creating a rain of blue light that runs through the transparent ice. This light shower is what the detector captures. Depending on the track, IceCube can determine the energy of a neutrino and the direction in which it was moving.

The IceCube observatory was waiting to see neutrinos from the atmosphere. But in 2013, astronomers noticed that they were collecting particles that were millions of times more energy than those produced by the Sun or even those found in the 1987 supernova. These high energy neutrinos were rarer than Other types: IceCube estimates that they capture about 10 of this type each year. The researchers strongly suspected that these neutrinos came from far away from our solar system and our galaxy, but they had no proof.

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