Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detector

Abstract

Extraterrestrial Neutrinos Neutrinos are thought to be produced in astrophysical sources outside our solar system but, up until recently, they had only been observed from one supernova in 1987. Aartsen et al. ( 10.1126/science.1242856 ; see the cover) report data obtained between 2010 and 2012 with the IceCube neutrino detector that reveal the presence of a high-energy neutrino flux containing the most energetic neutrinos ever observed, including 28 events at energies between 30 and 1200 TeV. Although the origin of this flux is unknown, the findings are consistent with expectations for a neutrino population with origins outside the solar system.