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NASA’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole made an exciting discovery on September 22, 2017, when it detected an unusual signal from deep space. This signal, carrying 300 trillion electron volts of energy over 45 times more than Earth's most powerful particle accelerators was identified as a neutrino, a subatomic particle. After further investigation, scientists confirmed that this ‘ghost particle’ originated from a massive, spinning black hole named TXS 0506.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope played a key role in pinpointing the signal’s source, which was far beyond our solar system actually more than 3.7 billion light-years away. The neutrino jet had been traveling at near-light speed before it reached Earth, making it the most distant signal of its kind detected so far.
Such high-energy neutrinos are typically associated with some of the universe’s most extreme events, like galaxy mergers and material falling into supermassive black holes. These particles can travel immense distances through space without losing much energy, due to their rare interactions with matter.
Around the same time the neutrino signal was detected, the Fermi Telescope observed a surge in gamma-ray emissions from TXS 0506, a type of active galaxy known as a blazar. These galaxies host black holes millions to billions of times the mass of our sun, ejecting high-speed particle jets that are visible from Earth.
This unusual event marks a major milestone in the study of multi-messenger astronomy, connecting neutrinos and gamma rays to help scientists better understand extreme cosmic phenomena. The discovery, published in 'Science' on July 11, highlights how these cosmic messengers are deepening our understanding of the universe's most powerful events.