Most Energetic Cosmic Neutrino Ever Observed by KM3NeT Deep Sea Telescope
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Summary
An Italian neutrino telescope, ARCA, has detected a neutrino with an estimated energy of 220 penta electron volts (PeV), making it the most energetic neutrino ever observed.
The detection was detailed in a study published in Nature.
Whilst neutrinos are abundant and can provide insight into remote objects and events in the universe, they rarely interact with matter, making detection difficult.
ARCA, which is located at a depth of 3.45km off the coast of Sicily, uses photomultipliers to detect the blueish light of Cherenkov radiation that occurs when a neutrino interacts with a dense medium.
The detector is made up of 700m-tall detection units spaced 100m apart, consisting of numerous individual spheres filled with detectors and supporting equipment.
Whilst the detection of a single high-power neutrino is not enough to determine its origin, the detection of more such particles could offer more insight.
