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Description
IceCube, located in the clear glacier ice close to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole base, has been called the world's weirdest telescope. It was completed in December 2010, after more than a decade of planning, development and extensive tests by, among others, researchers from the universities in Stockholm and Uppsala. This unique detector will give us insights into the most violent processes in the universe, taking place in the extreme environments close to black holes. IceCube encompasses one billion tons of ice, monitored by over 5000 photosensors frozen into the glacier at depths between 1450 and 2450 meters. The sensors register the faint light created when charged particles from neutrino interactions move through the ice at super-luminal speeds. Neutrinos are nearly massless subatomic particles produced in many astrophysical processes. IceCube has not only succeded in uncovering and measuring the flux of highly energetic neutrinos from outer space but for the first time also in pointing out objects producing such neutrinos.
