Neutrinos Come Knocking For Astronomy

I feel as if these are the golden years for astronomy and astrophysics.

First there was the discovery of gravitational waves. Then a major astronomical event occurred, and we were able to detect it using the "old" standard technique via EM radiation, and via the detection of gravitational waves from it. So now astronomy has two different types of "messengers" to tell us about such events.

Well now, make way for a third messenger, and that is ubiquitous neutrinos. Two papers published in Science last week detected neutrinos (along with the accompanying EM radiation) from a "blazer". The neutrino detection part was made predominantly at IceCube detector located in the Antarctica.

Both papers are available as open access here and here. A summary of this discovery can be found at PhysicsWorld (may require free registration).

Zz.