Neutrino Physics

Neutrinos are subatomic particles with near-zero mass that interact only via the weak nuclear force and gravity — making them virtually undetectable. Approximately 65 billion solar neutrinos pass through every square centimeter of your body every second — passing through Earth as if it weren't there. They were theorized by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 and detected in 1956. Neutrinos were long believed to be massless, but the discovery of neutrino oscillation (neutrinos changing 'flavor' as they travel) proved they have tiny but non-zero mass — earning the 2015 Nobel Prize. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica detects cosmic neutrinos by looking for rare interactions in 1 km³ of transparent ice. Neutrino detectors can 'see' inside the Sun and observe supernovae happening in real time.