UNITED STATES: Scientists have discovered that a neighbouring spiral galaxy is spewing out phantom neutrinos, strange particles that scarcely interact with the matter around them.
The mysterious particles are emanating from a black hole-anchored neutrino hotspot in the centre of the spiral galaxy Messier 77.
Neutrinos are elementary particles with no charge and almost no mass that barely interacts with other materials. They quickly avoid any obstacles in their path because they travel at close to light speed. They are, therefore, exceedingly difficult to find.
IceCube Observatory at the South Pole can help with that. In one cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice, IceCube, a collection of more than 5,000 light-sensitive detectors, records the minute radiation flashes caused by muons (heavy electrons) as a result of infrequent interactions between neutrinos and atomic nuclei in the ice.
In 2018, the IceCube team discovered a new active galactic centre with a huge black hole as its gravitational anchor as a source of high-energy neutrinos. The particle manufacturing facility is perched above Orion’s shoulder.
The distribution of far-off blazars in the sky and the directions in which high-energy neutrinos arrive were shown to be related earlier this year, according to scientific reports. The current finding, however, implies that the particles’ producers aren’t limited to blazars.
”The active galaxies like NGC 1068, which are significantly more common than blazars, may help explain the amount of all cosmic neutrinos seen by the IceCube Observatory,” argues Kohta Murase (Associate Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics. Department Affiliations. Department of Physics).
Future observations, especially those made by the European KM3NeT observatory currently being built on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, will likely prove the thesis because it will have a far better directional sensitivity than IceCube.
Also Read: Stunning New Image of the Phantom Galaxy Reveals More Details about It
