Scientists have discovered mysterious radio signals that come from the depths of the ice in the Antarctic, and they do not know their cause. Researchers in Pennsylvania used a special cosmic brick – a device that picks up small particles of space – to find these unusual signals.
According to a press statement, these signals “challenge the current understanding of particle physics”, which means that they do not match what scientists currently know about how particles are behaved.
The detector, which is part of a project called a transformer antenna in the ANITA, is an unusual preparation-it is actually suspended by a group of high-height balloons.
Usually, Anita discovers the particles that come from space and bounce from the surface of the Earth. But this time, the signals appear to come from the bottom of the ice, which were unexpected and confusing.
Stephanie Wesil, Professor of Physics and Astronomy in Pennsylvania, worked on the Anita team, Make up They were originally looking for small molecules that are difficult to discover called neutrons when they found these strange radio waves instead.
“The radio waves that we discovered were in very slope angles. Like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,” Wesel said in the press statement.
The results were Published In the physical review messages magazine, but researchers admitted that they still have no clear explanation.
Wesel said: “We still do not actually have an explanation for the abnormal cases, but what we know is that they are probably not representing neutrons,” Wesel said.
Neutrone is small molecules that pass through almost everything without interaction – meaning that they rarely collide with other particles. It comes from strong cosmic events such as Supernovae or particle accelerators. Although trillion from neutrone passes through us every second, it is very difficult to discover them because they hardly leave a trace.
“You have a billion neutrons that pass through the mini image at any moment, but the neutrons do not really react,” Wesel explained. “Therefore, this is the problem of the two -minimal sword. If we discover it, this means that they traveled all the way without interacting with anything else. We can discover the neutrino coming from the noticeable edge of the universe.”
After comparing Anita readings with other neutrino detectors, the team concluded that the signals they found were completely different – something they could not explain.
Wissel has a theory: “I think some of the interesting radio spreading effects happen near ice and also near the horizon that I do not fully understand, but we certainly discovered many of these, and we have not been able to find any of these yet. So, it is now one of these long -term puzzles.”
Since Anita is approximately 20 years old, NASA and other institutions are developing a more advanced balloon -based detector called The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy (Pueo). This new detector will be larger and better in finding small molecules such as neutrons – and perhaps even solving the mystery of these signals in the strange southern pole.
“I am excited because when we fly Boyu, we will have better sensitivity,” Wesel said. “In principle, we must pick up more abnormal cases, and we may actually understand what it is. We may also discover neutrons, which will be in some ways more exciting.”
