Jul 9, 2024
Huge neutrino detector sees first hints of particles from exploding stars
Posted by Cecile G. Tamura in categories: cosmology, particle physics
Kamiokande-II saw the first supernova neutrinos from the famous SN 1987A.
Every few seconds, somewhere in the observable Universe, a massive star collapses and unleashes a supernova explosion. Japan’s Super-Kamiokande observatory might now be collecting a steady trickle of neutrinos from those cataclysms, physicists say — amounting to a few detections a year.
These tiny subatomic particles are central to understanding what goes on inside a supernova: because they zip out of the star’s collapsing core and across space, they can provide information about any potentially new physics that occur under extreme conditions.
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