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Title: Antarctica's Massive Neutrino Observatory Gets an Upgrade

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/28/0...

There's already 5,000 sensors embedded in Antarctica's ice to look for
evidence of neutrinos, reports the Washington Post. But in November
scientists drilled six new holes at least a mile and a half deep and
installed cables with hundreds more light detectors - an upgrade to the
massive 15-year-old IceCube Neutrino Observatory to detect the charged
particles produced by lower-energy neutrinos interacting with matter: When
they do, the neutrinos produce charged particles that travel through the ice
at nearly the speed of light, creating a blue glow called Cherenkov
radiation... "Within the first couple years, we should be making much better
measurements," [said Erin O'Sullivan, an associate professor of physics at
Uppsala University in Sweden and a spokesperson for the project.] "There's
hope to expand the detector, by an order of magnitude in volume, so the
important thing there is we're not just seeing a few neutrino point sources,
but we're starting to be a true telescope. ... That's really the dream." The
scientists spent seven years planning the upgrade, according to the article.
"To drill holes a mile and a half deep takes about 30 hours, and 18 more
hours to return to the surface," the article points out. "Then, the race
begins because almost immediately, the hole starts to shrink as the water
refreezes." ("If it takes too much time, the principal investigator says,
"the instruments don't fit in anymore!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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