* Astronomy

Tiny flashes of blue light from 1,400 metres beneath the icy South Pole could help scientists uncover the origins of cosmic rays and neutrinos.
These flashes, which occur when neutrinos created by cosmic rays strike ice atoms, are being detected by IceCube: a 'telescope' made up of thousands of optical sensors buried deep in the Antarctic ice. This chilly location is ideal because the ice is very clear, as it's free of air bubbles and other distortions.
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IceCube drillers train for final Antarctic season

The sweltering Wisconsin summer is a far cry from conditions at the South Pole, but ice drillers from around the United States will gather next week in Stoughton to prepare for the upcoming Antarctic work season.
The IceCube neutrino detector, under construction at the South Pole since 2004, is on track to be completed this winter. In anticipation of the final work season, drillers and installers will review plans and practice safety procedures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL), which features a test bed with components of the South Pole drilling site. IceCube staff use the test bed to run new equipment and train drillers and installers.
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IceCube spies unexplained pattern of cosmic rays

Though still under construction, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole is already delivering scientific results - including an early finding about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study.
IceCube captures signals of notoriously elusive but scientifically fascinating subatomic particles called neutrinos. The telescope focuses on high-energy neutrinos that travel through the Earth, providing information about faraway cosmic events such as supernovas and black holes in the part of space visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
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Title: IceCube: An Instrument for Neutrino Astronomy
Authors: Francis Halzen, Spencer R. Klein

Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s; by the 1970s, it was realised that kilometre-scale neutrino detectors were required. The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data. The IceCube project transforms a cubic kilometre of deep and ultra-transparent Antarctic ice into a particle detector. A total of 5,160 optical sensors are embedded into a gigaton of Antarctic ice to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced when neutrinos interact with nuclei in the ice. Each optical sensor is a complete data acquisition system, including a phototube, digitisation electronics, control and trigger systems and LEDs for calibration. The light patterns reveal the type (flavour) of neutrino interaction and the energy and direction of the neutrino, making neutrino astronomy possible. The scientific missions of IceCube include such varied tasks as the search for sources of cosmic rays, the observation of Galactic supernova explosions, the search for dark matter, and the study of the neutrinos themselves. These reach energies well beyond those produced with accelerator beams.
The outline of this review is as follows:
Neutrino Astronomy and Kilometre-Scale Detectors. High-Energy Neutrino Telescopes: Methodologies of Neutrino Detection. IceCube Hardware. High-Energy Neutrino Telescopes: Beyond Astronomy. Future Projects

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