Why particle physicists are going wild for a record-breaking neutrino

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Visual impression of the ultra-high energy neutrino event observed in KM3NeT/ARCA. The colours indicate the light seen by the ?eyes? on each module, where the different colours represent different observation times. The almost horizontally reconstructed track of the particle is shown as a line from right to left. Courtesy KM3NeT. — A visual impression of the ultra-high energy neutrino event observed by scientists at the European Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT)

KM3NeT

If you have ever eaten a banana, then you have consumed an active radiation source. They are rich in potassium, a small fraction of which is the naturally occurring radioactive isotope ⁴⁰K (potassium-40). While this might sound scary, the levels are safe for human consumption, and they have a fun side effect: neutrinos. Beta decay, one of the ways unstable atoms can undergo radioactive decay, converts the potassium into calcium with a side helping of elementary particles: an…

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Oklahoma Digital News1 week ago

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