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Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

phys.org

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Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#31

Post by psychoslave »

gibsonsmog wrote: post #21
4ndrewl wrote: post #2

Just read the title and thought "Not now Cthulu, we've got enough going on"

Cthulu is supposed to rise and induce madness in the population, driving them towards death and destruction right? Seems like he'd be bored these days

Earth, 2026. Silently shifting through the mysterious dimensional plans, Cthulhu just jumped in. Thinking it could unleash new level of despair and frights on the mere mortal souls inhabiting this world, it was anticipating it's own jubilation. Throwing a glance omnivision on it however, all sense of joy suddenly vanished from its monstrous mind and to its own surprise, despair was invading it as it was contemplating situations far more awful than what it had ever devised. All self inflicted by small almost-thoughtless meat bags. Shifting back, it tried to convince itself this never happened and in the same time, promise itself to never land again on this desolated place.

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#32

Post by prmoustache »

ReptileMan wrote: post #28
ryandamm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that’s the recommended way to put out an alkali metal fire. At least according to my grandfather who helped write safety regulations for nuclear subs whose reactors were cooled by liquid sodium. Not really something I’d want to try out in practice, seems like a fire in a nuclear reactor under the ocean, where the source of the fire explodes on contact with water, is a less-than-ideal situation. Not a bad…

That is indeed the second best way to extinguish them. The best when seeing alkali metal burning is a good pair of running shoes.

Running shoes won't help you much in a nuclear submarine.

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cozzyd wrote: post #24
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

Summary for those who won't fight through four blocking pop-ups to read the article: When a high-energy particle (cosmic ray, say) hits ice, it creates an interaction cascade. (Think of what the Fly's Eye experiment sees, but in ice.) That interaction cascade creates (among other things) a radio signal. This detector is a radio detector under Antarctic ice, looking for exactly that. The point is that, if a high-energ…

Let me clarify, as someone involved in writing this paper. This radio emisison (Askaryan emission) is the mechanism by which we hope to detect neutrinos with detectors like ARA (and also PUEO, RNO-G, etc. which I also work on :) ), but these events are actually candidate impacting cosmic rays. UHE cosmic rays (protons, and heavier nuclei) are charged particles that will start cascading in the atmosphere, but in certa…

Follow up question: So if it's a cosmic ray, it has to be near vertical, or it would interact with the atmosphere and never make it to the ice? So if it's far from vertical, then it was a high-energy neutrino? Do I have that right?

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#35

Post by cozzyd »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #33
cozzyd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me clarify, as someone involved in writing this paper. This radio emisison (Askaryan emission) is the mechanism by which we hope to detect neutrinos with detectors like ARA (and also PUEO, RNO-G, etc. which I also work on :) ), but these events are actually candidate impacting cosmic rays. UHE cosmic rays (protons, and heavier nuclei) are charged particles that will start cascading in the atmosphere, but in certa…

Follow up question: So if it's a cosmic ray, it has to be near vertical, or it would interact with the atmosphere and never make it to the ice? So if it's far from vertical, then it was a high-energy neutrino? Do I have that right?

It has to be nearish vertical (how close depends on energy, but it's a pretty wide band around vertical) so that all of its energy is not absorbed in the atmosphere. As you get closer to horizontal trajectories you go through way more atmosphere. Neutrino-induced cascade would typically be initiated within the ice , not at the surface (in principle they could be at the surface but we would reject them since it's much more likely that it's something else in that case).

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#36

Post by cozzyd »

worldsavior wrote: post #34

Why so many authors?

Everyone in the collaboration is an author. This is typical for particle physics collaborations. Not everyone contributed directly to this analysis of course, though everyone's feedback was solicited. Some people contributed to construction, instrument design, deployment, calibration, operations, monitoring, maintenance, common data processing tools, etc. the acknowledgements list the people who did most of the work but even they were advised by a larger group of people (I was one of them :) ).

Note that the author order is alphabetical but one of the primary authors happens to be first alphabetically.

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#37

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Cough, Cough. (Dusting off my Hacker News Fan Boy Hat.)

I just want to come round again to how amazing it is to have a small slice of the internet where “amazeballs scientific discovery happens” and we get, of course, someone on the site who has been part of it.

(Hat goes back in box)

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#38

Post by dylan604 »

cozzyd wrote: post #30
ReptileMan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I am more than willing to hear his political platform.

https://cthulhuforamerica.com/

America First, then the rest of the world. Love it. Thanks for this. Already spreading it.

Re: Deep under Antarctic ice, a long-predicted cosmic whisper breaks through

#39

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #23
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we didn't start the fire it was always burning since the world was turning

But we definitely tried our best to extinguish it with gasoline.

it's important to remember - it has always felt like that
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