They are invisible, have nearly no mass and can travel at fantastic speeds through galaxies but scientists have detected and tracked sub-atomic particles from space with a telescope buried in Antarctic ice. Halzen and a team of international physicists and astronomers reported their sightings of Neutrinos, the only high-energy particles that hold information from the far reaches of the universe, in the science journal Nature.
Neutrinos travel through the Earth all the time without being detected.
When they collide with matter they release another sub-atomic particle called a Muon. Amanda tracks a trail of blue light given off by the Muon identical to the path of the Neutrino. Scientists believe the trail of the Neutrino should, in theory, point back to its point of origin. One of the quests of modern astrophysics is discovering the sources of high-energy cosmic Neutrinos which are believed to be created by exploding stars and other violent events in space. The Amanda Telescope with its 667 optical modules set deep in the ice looks down, not up, through the Earth to track high-energy atmospheric Neutrinos which are created when cosmic rays crash into the Earth's atmosphere.