IceCube: An Instrument for Neutrino Astronomy

Understand

Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s; by the 1970s, it was realized that kilometer-scale neutrino detectors were required.

• The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data.
• The IceCube project transforms a cubic kilometer of deep and ultra-transparent Antarctic ice into a particle detector.
• A total of 5,160 optical sensors are embedded into a gigaton of Antarctic ice to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced when neutrinos interact with nuclei in the ice.