Those telescopes and detectors captured a massive burst of other radiation. The location (green target) of blazar TXS 0506+056 in the arm of the constellation Orion.Īfter the high-energy neutrino's detection, IceCube alerted other astronomers, who aimed a suite of light-based observatories at the blazar. The supermassive black hole is located 4 billion light-years from Earth, in the core of what's called an active galaxy. The blazar is called TXS 0506+056, and it appears in the sky just below the arm of the constellation Orion. The neutrino was unusually energetic, and when scientists tracked the particle back to its source they found a galactic monster called a blazar: a rapidly spinning black hole, millions of times the mass of the sun, that's gobbling up gas and dust. Researchers detected the "ghost" particle, or neutrino, in September using IceCube, a huge array of sensors embedded deep in the ice of Antarctica. It often indicates a user profile.Īstronomers say they've more or less confirmed a key source of cosmic rays - some of the highest-energy yet most enigmatic radiation in the universe - with the detection of a single "ghostly" particle in Antarctica.Ĭosmic rays were discovered more than 100 years ago, but their origins are tough to know for sure because they can be deflected en route to Earth, and our planet's atmosphere absorbs most of them. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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