New discovery made by an EU-supported project can help unlock the mysteries of violent phenomena in the Universe!

The announcement was made yesterday after the discovery was published in Nature Magazine.

KM3NET, a giant neutrino telescope sitting at the bottom of the sea, has detected the highest-energy neutrino ever observed. The neutrino travelled at the speed of light directly from the cosmos to the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Sicily, where the detector is located. Neutrinos are extraordinary messengers that carry with them valuable information about the most extreme conditions and violent phenomena happening in the remote places of the Universe, such as: accreting supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies, supernova explosions or gamma ray bursts, phenomena not yet fully understood. This discovery provides the first evidence of neutrinos with such high energies being produced in the Universe and opens a new observational window on the Universe.

KM3NeT is receiving funding under HorizonEU Research Infrastructures. The EU is happy to contribute to this project in collaboration with other funding entities. The project involves 360 scientists, engineers, technicians and students of 68 institutions from 21 countries all over the world. Their main goal is to build a powerful network of detectors in the Mediterranean Sea. Future observations will focus on detecting more such events in order to build a clearer picture of their origins.

KM3Net.jpg

Infographic source: European Research Executive Agency (ERA)

Learn more about this remarkable achievement and its potential impact on our understanding of the universe by visiting the below link.

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