[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"article-detail":3},{"lang":4,"article":5,"alternate":19,"related":24,"latest":33},"en",{"id":6,"slug":7,"title":8,"content":9,"summary":10,"thumbnail":11,"metaDescription":12,"metaKeywords":13,"created":14,"modified":14,"author":15,"authorEn":15,"categoryId":16,"commentCount":17,"thumbnailToContent":18},12747,"neutrino-astronomy-icecube-mzpl","Neutrinos From Space: The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics","\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">On October 6, 2026, at 17:45 Beijing time, the Belgian physicist Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics — for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fattachment\u002F20261007\u002Fd4966d641b4249869cbae2bff4e81626.webp\" alt=\"img_01.webp\">\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>The Shyest Particle in the Universe\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Neutrinos are the shyest particles in the cosmos. They carry no charge and their mass is almost zero. Normally they pass through matter without hindrance — almost never colliding with an atomic nucleus in a way we can detect. Every second, 65 billion neutrinos from the Sun pass through your thumbnail, and you never feel a thing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Neutrinos also arrive from elsewhere in the universe, carrying clues to some of its deepest mysteries. Catch the rarer cosmic ones, and you can read information about the extreme environments where they were born.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Halzen realized back in the 1980s that Antarctic ice was ideal for catching enough of these shy particles to trace their distant origins. In 1992, the first hardy crew of researchers and engineers lowered light sensors into the Antarctic glacier. About 20 years later came the breakthrough: the IceCube neutrino telescope recorded neutrinos whose signatures convinced researchers they came from deep space. The hunt for cosmic neutrino sources was on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>Where Particle Physics Meets Astrophysics\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Halzen grew up in Belgium, drawn in the 1960s to particle physics — massive particles built from quarks. After his PhD he moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he came to see what particle physics could learn from particles arriving from space — and how astrophysics could borrow particle-physics methods.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">The motivation came from observing a completely different type of particle. Cosmic rays — mostly protons, bare hydrogen nuclei — constantly travel through the universe. Some arrive at Earth carrying energies far beyond anything Earth's accelerators can produce.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Where the highest-energy cosmic rays come from is one of the hardest questions in physics. The physics itself says: any process able to accelerate protons to such energies also produces high-energy neutrinos. So neutrinos may be the key to the cosmic particle accelerators.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Identify a neutrino carrying extreme energy, and you can tell it apart from the far lower-energy ones born in radioactive decay, in the Sun, or when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere. Those not from Earth's neighborhood must come from somewhere very far away: the violent activity of exploding stars, or distant active galaxies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>A Flash of Light in the Ice\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">In the 1980s Halzen heard that Soviet researchers planned to catch neutrino signals in Antarctica with radio receivers: when a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus in ice, the spark could emit radio waves. The idea sparked his own: install light sensors in the glacier to catch the flash instead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Around 1960, a few physicists had proposed water as an ideal medium for catching space neutrinos. When a neutrino rarely collides with a nucleus, it produces a charged particle that travels in the same direction and emits blue light. Water is transparent, so the light can be detected — trace its path, and you can even work back to the neutrino's origin. The catch: you need an enormous volume of water to see enough collisions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Halzen proposed natural ice instead of water. He contacted his colleague John G. Learned, then working on the DUMAND project, which aimed to catch neutrino light signals in the clear deep sea near Hawaii. In 1988 the two physicists first presented the idea of building a neutrino observatory in Antarctic ice at a conference in Poland.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fattachment\u002F20261007\u002Fe0f1b72ab89b472a90ec4e134ed38ef0.webp\" alt=\"img_02.webp\">\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>A Telescope Buried in Antarctica\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">The geographic South Pole offered practical advantages: an existing research station, regular transport, everything a team needs. Ice as a medium had more: at sufficient depth it is always dark, free of the biological activity of the ocean, low in radioactive background, stable underfoot, and geologically quiet — no earthquakes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">The drawback: the Antarctic cold closes the route for most of the year. All real work happens in the brief Antarctic summer, November through February.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Halzen started with theory, while Learned stayed busy with his own project. The story might have ended there — but the idea drew attention, and within a few years researchers from different institutions gathered around Halzen to push the Antarctic observatory forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">First came the practical problems of burying instruments in ice. Glaciologists showed them a precision showerhead-like device that melts boreholes with hot water, a kilometer deep or more. Long cables strung with light sensors were lowered into the refilled holes. Halzen called the sensors \"light bulbs in reverse\" — they capture light and turn it into electrical signals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">The team first tested sensors in Greenland ice, then began building the first Antarctic observatory: AMANDA, IceCube's predecessor. Halzen remembered Christmas Eve 1993, laptop on his lap at the dinner table, waiting for confirmation that the first cable with optical modules was installed in the ice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">The upper layers of ice are full of bubbles that scatter light, blurring particle tracks; the early attempts were disappointing. Below 1,400 meters, however, the ice is astonishingly pure and transparent — a flash can travel 300 meters before being absorbed, far beyond expectations. A side benefit: the project learned a great deal about ice at different depths.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">AMANDA ran until January 2000. It worked as designed, but was too small for high-energy cosmic neutrinos. A larger detector was needed — hence IceCube: a cubic kilometer of ice instrumented with light sensors. IceCube reached full scale in 2011, with 5,160 optical sensors on 86 cables.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fattachment\u002F20261007\u002F67f2387f37ca4cda9dcd5d75ce1f985e.webp\" alt=\"img_03.webp\">\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>The Breakthrough of 2013\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">An observatory like IceCube detects far more than the neutrinos researchers were hunting. The cosmic signals had to be picked out of the background created when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere. Some of those particles penetrate the ice to the sensors between 1,450 and 2,450 meters down. Every day more than 100 million such particles are recorded. Cosmic rays also make neutrinos in the atmosphere, and hundreds of those cross the entire Earth from the northern hemisphere to reach IceCube daily.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">To find cosmic neutrinos, researchers had to pick out the specific events where a neutrino interacted in the ice. Even when a single neutrino's extraterrestrial origin could not be confirmed, the full set of events could be analyzed as a population — do their characteristics match cosmic neutrinos, and differ from atmospheric ones? In 2013, the team reported the first evidence supporting cosmic neutrinos; a few years later they had enough data to confirm the discovery.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>What Physicists Hope to Learn\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Neutrino astronomy started small. In the 1960s, Raymond Davis Jr. observed neutrinos from the Sun. The Kamiokande team under Masatoshi Koshiba confirmed it by tracing neutrino paths to their source. In 1987, Kamiokande caught neutrinos linked to an exploding star in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud — a supernova — with US and Soviet measurements quickly following. Davis and Koshiba won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics, proving neutrinos could be used to study cosmic phenomena.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">One puzzle remained: Davis caught only a third of the neutrinos theory predicted from solar reactions. The answer lay in neutrinos having three types — they can \"morph,\" arriving at detectors as a different type than the one created. Observing that required a different technique. The morphing was revealed by Japanese and Canadian experiments, and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Neutrinos helped verify models of the Sun's interior and supernova evolution. IceCube was designed to take neutrino astronomy higher, hoping for information hidden behind dust clouds, or from objects so distant that other radiation has faded. The goal: knowledge obtainable no other way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Compared with protons, neutrinos have one advantage: no charge. Charged protons crossing space have their paths bent by magnetic fields, so you cannot trace a proton back to its origin. But the process that accelerates protons also makes neutrinos, which ignore magnetic fields — trace the highest-energy neutrinos, and you should find where the cosmic-ray protons were accelerated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Gamma radiation, another messenger from the universe's most violent processes, steadily decays as it interacts with light and matter across space. Neutrinos do not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">\u003Cimg src=\"\u002Fattachment\u002F20261007\u002F67328676bdab47399e26c79e87c44531.webp\" alt=\"img_04.webp\">\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>More Discoveries to Come\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">A major goal is pinning down individual sources of astrophysical neutrinos. IceCube has found possible candidates, one being the active galaxy NGC 1068 (M77): 79 recorded neutrinos seem to point in its direction. Not yet conclusive — the more neutrinos caught, the better the odds of locating the source.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Recently, IceCube researchers also observed high-energy neutrinos from our own galaxy, likely produced when cosmic radiation collides with atoms in the thin gas between stars.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">In the coming years we will hear more neutrino astronomy from teams following IceCube's path. Several northern-hemisphere neutrino telescopes are under development, built in water rather than ice. The DUMAND project that inspired Halzen in the 1980s ended in 1995, but its experience lived on through projects in Lake Baikal, the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, and off Canada's west coast. Meanwhile IceCube keeps catching neutrinos. The next Antarctic expansion is already planned: IceCube-Gen2 will cover a full 8 cubic kilometers of ice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Every second, invisible messengers cross your body — and some of them, finally, are being caught and read. Curiosity about the invisible, it turns out, is a very human thing to pursue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Curious what another kind of invisible messenger looks like up close? \u003Cstrong>WWAI\u003C\u002Fstrong> is an AI-powered biology encyclopedia with an online microscope, including a \u003Cstrong>red blood cell specimen where biconcave, nucleus-free cells that carry oxygen are clearly visible\u003C\u002Fstrong>. Search \"WWAI\" in your app store and download it today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cdiv class=\"dp-template-card\" style=\"border-radius:8px;box-shadow:0 2px 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);margin:10px 0;max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;width:100%;\">\n \u003Ca style=\"display:block;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fyun-hub.chat\u002Flink\u002F?app=wwai&clickid=stellarx&dplink=specimenid%3D1043\" target=\"_blank\">\u003Cimg class=\"image_resized\" style=\"display:block;height:auto;max-width:100%;width:100%;\" src=\"\u002Fattachment\u002F20260824\u002F5ba5dd3c38404fe785f43c44423830de.png\" alt=\"5ba5dd3c38404fe785f43c44423830de\">\n  \u003Cbutton style=\"align-items:center;background-color:#1f983e;border-radius:0 0 25px 25px;border-style:none;color:#ffffff;cursor:pointer;display:flex;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:19px;height:40px;justify-content:center;padding:0;width:100%;\">EXPLORE NOW\u003C\u002Fbutton>\u003C\u002Fa>\n\u003C\u002Fdiv>\n\u003Ch2 style=\"color:#111;font-size:21px;line-height:1.4;margin:28px 0 12px;\">\u003Cstrong>References\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Nobel Prize official website: https:\u002F\u002Fwww.nobelprize.org\u002F\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 18px;\">Cover and diagram illustrations are AI-generated. The Nobel portrait is the official Nobel Prize illustration by Niklas Elmehed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"color:#111;margin:28px 0 8px;\">\u003Cstrong>Related reading\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 20px;\">\u003Ca style=\"color:#111;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fmating-duration-evolution-qprt\">\u003Cimg class=\"image_resized\" style=\"border-radius:8px;display:block;height:auto;margin-bottom:6px;max-width:520px;width:100%;\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fcdn.banyunjuhe.com\u002Fattachment\u002F20261005\u002Fd6eaa457581a41b7a6a94f71ea33b52c.webp\" alt=\"Quick Mating & Evolution: Why Fast Didn't Win\">\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr>\u003Ca style=\"color:#0b6cb0;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fmating-duration-evolution-qprt\">\u003Cstrong>Quick Mating & Evolution: Why Fast Didn't Win\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 20px;\">\u003Ca style=\"color:#111;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fpancreas-feast-famine-protection-kxpm\">\u003Cimg class=\"image_resized\" style=\"border-radius:8px;display:block;height:auto;margin-bottom:6px;max-width:520px;width:100%;\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fcdn.banyunjuhe.com\u002Fattachment\u002F20261005\u002F15ad62b62c8e46a59cfda5df111783ba.webp\" alt=\"Pancreas, Feast-Famine Eating & Pancreatitis\">\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr>\u003Ca style=\"color:#0b6cb0;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fpancreas-feast-famine-protection-kxpm\">\u003Cstrong>Pancreas, Feast-Famine Eating & Pancreatitis\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp style=\"margin:0 0 20px;\">\u003Ca style=\"color:#111;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fnose-snot-conveyor-belt-vhqw\">\u003Cimg class=\"image_resized\" style=\"border-radius:8px;display:block;height:auto;margin-bottom:6px;max-width:520px;width:100%;\" src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fcdn.banyunjuhe.com\u002Fattachment\u002F20261005\u002Fb2f008ee03704f30a5b197e039032ebc.webp\" alt=\"Nose & Snot: Why a Small Cavity Produces So Much\">\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr>\u003Ca style=\"color:#0b6cb0;text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstellarx.tech\u002Farticle\u002Fnose-snot-conveyor-belt-vhqw\">\u003Cstrong>Nose & Snot: Why a Small Cavity Produces So Much\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>","","\u002Fattachment\u002F20261007\u002F8fbee243cbcd4c8f8329942cc56537de.webp","Francis Halzen wins the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for building IceCube and catching high-energy neutrinos from distant space.","stellarx, wwai, neutrino, IceCube, Nobel Prize, astrophysics, cosmic rays, Antarctica","2026-10-07 19:17:15","Science Guide Wwai",77,0,true,{"id":20,"slug":21,"title":22,"lang":23},12765,"homochirality-life-mirror-hmls","同手性是什麼？2026 諾貝爾化學獎得主解開生命之謎","zh",{"prev":25,"next":29},{"id":26,"slug":27,"title":28,"categoryId":16},12748,"sleep-duration-seven-hours-mbqw","Is 7 Hours the Best Sleep Duration? 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