High-energy neutrinos arrive from the galaxy NGC 1068

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a network of thousands of sensors located several thousand meters below the Antarctic ice, has made it possible to determine that an emission of neutrinos that reached Earth came from NGC 1068, an active galaxy close to ours and also known as Messier 77.

According to the findings of this recent study, the properties of the newly identified source are quite different from the high-energy blazar TXS 0506+56, previously identified as a source of neutrinos, suggesting that there is likely more than one population of blazars. sources contributing to the observed cosmic neutrino background.

The high-energy neutrinos detected on Earth are produced mainly by cosmic rays colliding with matter or radiation inside astrophysical objects, such as galaxies or jets emitted from the vicinity of black holes, or in the intergalactic space between these objects and the Earth. Land.

Observations have indicated that there is a diffuse background of neutrinos from extragalactic sources.

Revealing the origin of cosmic neutrinos and their relationship to other types of cosmic radiation is crucial to understanding the fundamental processes that shape the universe. However, identifying the individual sources of these elusive particles has been challenging.

The galaxy NGC 1068 shown in visible light and X-rays in this composite image. High-energy X-rays (magenta) captured by NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope are superimposed on visible-light photos of the area taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) initiative. (Images: NASA JPL / Caltech / Roma Tre Univ.)

On this occasion, the IceCube Collaboration, an international group of more than 400 researchers, evaluated data collected with the IceCube neutrino detector between 2011 and 2020 for astrophysical neutrino emissions above the cosmic background from 110 known extragalactic gamma-ray sources. , identifying NGC 1068 as a point source of high-energy extragalactic neutrinos.

The study is titled “Evidence for neutrino emission from the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068.” And it has been published in the academic journal Science. (Source: AAAS)