IceCube neutrinos point to long-sought cosmic ray accelerator

Ghost particle originates from supermassive black hole. An international team of scientists has found the first evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. The measured neutrino originates from a supermassive black hole. Researchers from VUB are among those behind the sensational finding. VUB professor Nick van Eijndhoven: "This discovery helps us to solve an age-old riddle about the universe: what drives cosmic rays such as neutrinos to move in the way that they do?" Ghost particle originates from supermassive black hole An international team of scientists has found the first evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. The measured neutrino originates from a supermassive black hole. Researchers from VUB are among those behind the sensational finding. VUB professor Nick van Eijndhoven: "This discovery helps us to solve an age-old riddle about the universe: what drives cosmic rays such as neutrinos to move in the way that they do?" Neutrinos are ghostly subatomic particles that can travel for billions of light years from the most extreme environments in the universe to reach even the Earth. The observations were made by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and confirmed by telescopes around the globe. Since they were first detected over one hundred years ago, cosmic rays - high-energy particles that continuously rain down on Earth from space - have posed an enduring mystery. What creates these particles and how can they travel unhindered across such vast distances' Where do they come from?