'Ghost Particle' That Smashed Into Earth Breaks Records (sciencealert.com) 30
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: In February 2023, a detector called KM3NeT, located deep under the Mediterranean Sea, picked up a signal that seemed to indicate a neutrino with a record-shattering energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV). For reference, the previous record was a mere 10 PeV. Now, an exhaustive analysis of all the data on and around the event, designated KM3-230213A, not only supports the conclusions that the signal was caused by a 220-PeV neutrino, but adds to the mystery about where the heck in the Universe it came from."The patterns of light detected for KM3-230213A show a clear match to what is expected from a relativistic particle crossing the detector, most likely a muon, ruling out the possibility of a glitch," the KM3NeT Collaboration told ScienceAlert. "Thanks to the reconstructed energy and direction of this muon, the most likely scenario by far is that the muon originated in the interaction of an astrophysical neutrino in proximity to the detector, making it the most natural explanation."
The scientists believe that it's very, very unlikely that the neutrino originated within the Milky Way galaxy. Work is underway to come closer to tracing its origin point. "KM3-230213A opened a new window on ultra-high-energy neutrino astronomy," the Collaboration said. "Our analysis is the first effort to combine the observations of multiple telescopes over a wide energy range to characterize the ultra-high-energy spectrum. This represents our best chance to gain knowledge on the most extreme objects that populate our Universe."
The research has been published in the journal Physical Review X.
The scientists believe that it's very, very unlikely that the neutrino originated within the Milky Way galaxy. Work is underway to come closer to tracing its origin point. "KM3-230213A opened a new window on ultra-high-energy neutrino astronomy," the Collaboration said. "Our analysis is the first effort to combine the observations of multiple telescopes over a wide energy range to characterize the ultra-high-energy spectrum. This represents our best chance to gain knowledge on the most extreme objects that populate our Universe."
The research has been published in the journal Physical Review X.
enough energy to knock something off a shelf (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Don't go Murph"
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"Don't go Murph"
I have no points or I'd mod you up. Instead, I golf-clap in your direction.
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What's the chance of one these going off in a human brain?
Re:enough energy to knock something off a shelf (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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"Spooky dupes at a distance"
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Given the likelihood and the mechanisms of energy release and absorption, a truck passing by your house or even a distant earthquake is a much, much more likely candidate. Muons generally don't knock things from shelves.
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Sure, Muons aren't the main cause of such incidents. But if you managed to eliminate every other possibility then the answer is either ghosts or a particle, probably a lepton of some sort from outside of the Solar system (and perhaps the galaxy)
Re:enough energy to knock something off a shelf (Score:5, Insightful)
Not like this with this - the energy here equates to a couple hundredths of a joule. Now, the "Oh My God! Particle" had a much higher energy, about three orders of magnitude higher. That's knock-photos-over sort of energy (and a lot more than that). The problem is that you can't deposit it all at once. A ton of energy does get transferred during the first collision, but it's ejecting whatever it hit out of whatever it was in as a shower of relativistic particles that - like the original particle - tend to travel a long distance between interactions. Whatever particle was hit is not pulling the whole target with it, it's just buggering off as a ghostly energy spray. There will be some limited chains of secondary interactions transferring more kinetic energy, but not "knock pictures over" levels of energy transferred.
Also, here on the surface you're very unlikely to get the original collision; collisions with the atmosphere can spread the resultant spray of particles out across multiple square kilometers before any of them reaches the surface.
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Maybe a brief chilly breeze! %^)
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Also, here on the surface you're very unlikely to get the original collision; collisions with the atmosphere can spread the resultant spray of particles out across multiple square kilometers before any of them reaches the surface.
You do realize, that this "original collision was detected below earth's surface level. The particle doesn't seem to interact much, which gives more credence to your first statement, that the particle, while having a lot of energy, typically doesn't transfer much of it on impact.
Three Body (Score:5, Funny)
I keep seeing these numbers counting down.
Chupacabra Particle (Score:2)
Are we just being sensational or is there another reason the summary doesn't mention why this is called a "Ghost Particle"?
Was this presumed to be a bug? Ghost in the Machine reference?
Unusual journalism rule breaking.
Re:Chupacabra Particle (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a neutrino. Those are often called "ghost particles" in popular sciencey articles.
While this is an energy record for neutrinos, the overall record cosmic ray (probably a proton) had over 1000X more energy.
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It was a neutrino...While this is an energy record for neutrinos,
Allow me to jump in here. I thought neutrinos had typical energies in the single-digit eV range, not PeV. I have no idea how you get that much energy in a close to massless particle.
I visualize neutrinos as being pretty close to photons, energy-wise. A visible light photon has something like 1-2 eV. X-ray photons are in the 100-100,000 eV range. I don't know what you'd call a PeV photon.
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I don't know what you'd call a PeV photon.
Ultra-high-energy gamma ray.
Re:Chupacabra Particle (Score:4, Interesting)
Neutrinos are called ghost particles because of how little they interact with other matter. They're constantly streaming through your body without interacting with you. A solar neutrino passing through the entire Earth has less than 1 in a million odds of interacting with the Earth.
relatavistic (Score:3)
I thought that neutrinos already do the speed of light.
AFAIK there are 3 types of neutrinos, electron, tau, and muon.
Re: relatavistic (Score:3)
There are also three mass states, some or all of them non-zero.
Re: relatavistic (Score:2)
Most extreme objects? (Score:2)
'This represents our best chance to gain knowledge on the most extreme objects that populate our Universe.'
I thought they were found in politics - at least you would think so given the language used in our politics today... ;)
Re: Most extreme objects? (Score:2)
Politicians are not nearly as important as they claim.
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Space Hates Me (Score:3)
A neutron smashed my Bat Out of Hell album and all I got was a photomultipliertube light signature.