Jakarta –
Deep in the Antarctic ice, many neutrinos have been found to come from the galaxy Messier 77. However, their profile does not match that of other powerful neutrino generators.
Neutrinos are elementary particles that have neither mass nor electric charge. Meanwhile, Messier 77, also known as NGC 1068, is one of the most studied galaxies outside our galaxy.
Loved by amateur astronomers for its beautiful spiral shape, Messier 77 has been shown to produce many high-energy neutrinos. To find out, the researchers did not have to go to space or to the top of a mountain like most astronomical research, but to explore several kilometers deep under the Antarctic ice. This discovery could help explain the abundance of cosmic neutrinos from all directions.
Neutrinos were first proposed in 1930, because physicists noticed that the products of some nuclear reactions had less energy and momentum than before.
As this violated all kinds of laws, it was concluded that there must be a missing particle that they did not detect, but it took 26 years to find a particle that met the necessary requirements.
We now know that the universe is teeming with cosmic neutrinos, with billions of neutrinos passing through us every second. However, they are so difficult to detect that we find very few of them and remain uncertain about their source.
However, a new article reveals that Messier 77 produces quite a lot and could represent a class of galaxies that do the same. This may explain why there are more high-energy neutrinos than can be attributed to previously known sources.
The discovery of a neutrino explosion associated with SN 1987A, the closest supernova to Earth in centuries, suggests that stellar outbursts provide a major source of cosmic neutrinos. However, if there is a supernova in Messier 77, researchers hope to find out.
At 47 million light-years away, it’s much farther than 1987A, but still closer than most supernovae scientists detect each year.
The IceCube Observatory made the first discovery of a high-energy neutrino source, TXS 0506 + 056 in 2018, nearly 100 times farther than Messier 77, and is located directly on Orion’s shoulder.
However, there doesn’t seem to be much in common between the two. TXS 0506 + 056 is a blazar, a type of galaxy whose near-fast jets of supermassive black holes point towards Earth. TXS 0506 + 056 allows scientists to make simultaneous observations of the gamma rays and neutrinos produced by these beams.
Although Messier 77 has an unusually active supermassive black hole for the local universe, no jets have been detected, making it known as radio-silent AGN (radio-silent AGN).
“Radio-silent AGN is more abundant than blazar, and high-volume AGN could help explain the observed number of cosmic neutrinos,” said Dr. Kohta Murase of Pennsylvania State University, quoted by IFL Science.
“After the exciting discovery of the neutrino in 2018 by TXS 0506 + 056, it was even more exciting to find the source that produces the constant flux of neutrinos that we can see with IceCube,” said co-author Dr Gary Hill of the University of Adelaide. .
“A neutrino can select a single source. But only observations with multiple neutrinos will reveal the dark core of the most energetic cosmic object,” said Professor Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a separate statement.
“IceCube has collected about 80 neutrinos of teraelectronvolt energy from NGC 1068, which is not enough to answer all our questions, but they are definitely the next big step towards the realization of neutrino astronomy.”
Neutrinos interact very badly with ordinary matter, the source of which is not hidden by clouds of dust. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know what makes a neutrino if we can’t see the source for ourselves.
The weak interaction of neutrinos forces their detectors to work by looking for flashes of light that are emitted on the rare occasion that a neutrino produces a muon when it hits an atomic nucleus.
By building larger and deeper detectors, it is possible to capture more neutrinos and those that travel faster and therefore carry more energy.
The IceCube Gen-2 was designed not only to allow scientists to learn more about Messier 77, but also to allow comparisons of nearby galaxies to similar but more distant neutrino producers.
“It’s like IceCube gives us a treasure map.” said Dr. Marek Kowalski of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron.
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