IceCube was completed in 2010, built to capture neutrinos from deep space. And the approach could ultimately help to unveil the source of cosmic rays - protons or heavier atomic nuclei that move at nearly the speed of light. IceCube and other observatories are turning neutrinos into a tool for peering into otherwise inaccessible places, such as the dense maelstroms of matter swirling around supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies, where extreme energies could reveal new physical phenomena. “We now have more information on the extragalactic sources than the Galactic ones,” says IceCube spokesperson Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In fact, it has been easier for astronomers to spot neutrinos from the far reaches of the Universe than those from the Milky Way. In the past decade, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has looked deeper into space, revealing neutrinos with record-high energies, and has pinpointed their origins to distant cosmic sources. Neutrinos are known to arise through myriad subatomic processes: from nuclear fusion in the Sun’s core and radioactivity in Earth’s rocks to high-energy collisions of interstellar particles with the atmosphere. Single subatomic particle illuminates mysterious origins of cosmic rays

Construction is under way on several neutrino-detecting arrays, at sites from the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia. The first neutrino map of our Galaxy is a milestone for the nascent field of neutrino astronomy, say researchers. Over the course of ten years, the array detected neutrinos one at a time and measured the direction they came from, which allowed researchers to chart their origin to the centre of the Milky Way. The observatory is a vast array of 5,160 sensors, buried more than 1.5 kilometres below the surface of the ice sheet.

The data came from the IceCube observatory at the South Pole, which detects neutrinos, the lightest, most pervasive of the Universe’s elementary particles. For the first time, astronomers have charted our Galaxy using something other than light rays - a finding that heralds a new way of studying what goes on in the busy centre of the Milky Way. In June, researchers released what might be the most unusual portrait of the Milky Way yet. Credit: IceCube Collaboration (Yuya Makino)/NSF An artist’s composite image shows the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and a depiction of the Milky Way based on detected neutrinos.

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