EPISODE · Jul 20, 2018 · 35 MIN
Episode 13: Neutrino Messenger from a Distant Blazar
from syzygy · host Chris Stewart
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPodOr just visit us at home: syzygy.fmEmily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/Chris online: kipstewart.comTo view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)Some of the things we talk about in this episode:All the latest TESS news! https://tess.mit.edu/news/TESS’s first light: http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/first-light-for-tessThe Blazar Neutrino — Paper 1: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/eaat1378Paper 2: : http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/147A good article about the IceCube Neutrino: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/high-energy-neutrinos-blazar-icecubeNeutrinos: https://icecube.wisc.edu/info/neutrinosIceCube Neutrino Observatory: https://icecube.wisc.eduIceCube’s stunning Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icecube_neutrino/Blazars: https://www.universetoday.com/30594/blazars/
What this episode covers
In September 2017, two kilometres deep beneath the South Pole, a tiny but very speedy neutrino collided with an atom in the ice and created a flash of light. The flash was picked up by a few of the more than 5,000 photodetectors that comprise the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, and immediately the banks of computers at the surface sent out an alarm to astronomers across the globe: we’ve found one! Astronomers pointed their telescopes back along the neutrino’s path, and searched for a source. Eventually they found one: an exotic entity known as a blazar, a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy 3.7 billion light years away, spewing out an intense beam of high-energy particles that happens to be pointing right at us. A single neutrino, heralding an exciting new era of multi-messenger astronomy.
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Episode 13: Neutrino Messenger from a Distant Blazar
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