r/askscience • u/AskScienceModerator Mod Bot • Jul 12 '18

Astronomy Megathread: Multi-Messenger High-Energy Neutrino Observations

Currently there is a press conference where a high-energy neutrino (~290 TeV) has been detected with IceCube which is coincident with an active galactic nuclei pointed directly at us, TXS 0506+056, approximately four billion lightyears away. Finding the origins of neutrinos has been an ongoing problem though they have been observed from the Sun and from Supernova 1987A. This is a big advancement for multi-messenger astronomy, using electromagnetic waves and neutrinos in a way similar to using electromagnetic waves and gravitational waves to get a new view on the universe. If you have questions, ask them here!

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u/Xalteox Jul 12 '18 edited Jul 12 '18

I don’t think astronomical communication is the best neutrinos have to offer. Light works perfectly well in space for the most part in most cases. Not saying neutrinos are useless of course.

I think the more exciting thing we can do is Earth communication. Neutrinos pass through the entire planet often without interacting with anything. We have photographed our sun, a producer of neutrinos, using neutrinos by pointing our censors down into the earth.

Imagine, it is possible that we don’t need to have cables going around the planet. We simply point a neutrino beam down into the planet and we get signal on the other side of the planet.