5 ms·

This is really brilliant, literally jaw-dropping. I was really blown away by the idea and construction of the detector itself and this application is astounding

This is really brilliant, literally jaw-dropping. I was really blown away by the idea and construction of the detector itself and this application is astounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory

gpuhacker 8y ago
You may like KM3NeT then (http://www.km3net.org/ http://www.km3net.org/). The goal is to build a cubic kilometer spanning instrument at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
- dark_star 8y ago
  Wikipedia has a good artist's conception picture of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT
bacon_waffle 8y ago
My favourite story about the construction of IceCube relates to the drilling of the holes to deploy the detector. They used two types of drill, which melt the firn (compacted snow) on top and ice lower down. One is a sort of conical heat exchanger, the other circulates water through a Big water heater on the surface. In the early days of South Pole Station (late 1950s), supplies were airdropped in - the cargo planes of that era couldn't land on the snow and going overland was very difficult. Many of the parachutes wouldn't open properly, and so lots of supplies (including a bulldozer) and parachutes wound up buried in the snow. South Pole slowly accumulates snow, so that debris has gotten deeper and deeper below the surface over time. Of course, the holes required to build IceCube had to go deeper than those supplies, but the drill can't go through things that don't melt, so in some cases the holes had to be moved off the nominal grid. According to the story I heard, one of the holes ran in to a bunch of meat, which floated to the top of the bore...
- sohkamyung 8y ago
  No mentions about finding meat here, but you might be interested in this story at IEEE Spectrum about the construction of IceCube from 2011 [1]. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/icecube-the-polar-particle-hunter https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/icecube-the...
ArtWomb 8y ago
Agreed. This is truly astounding. Neutrinos seem to encapsulate an unnaturally high degree of complexity and information in such a tiny package ;) Formalism of Neutrino Oscillations https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.05781.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.05781.pdf
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  I always thought that if an alien civilization is trying to communicate with earth, they would do it via neutrinos and not radio waves, because if you know where you are communicating to, you don't need to worry about signal attenuation as much as with EM waves.

gpuhacker 8y ago

You may like KM3NeT then (http://www.km3net.org/ http://www.km3net.org/). The goal is to build a cubic kilometer spanning instrument at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

dark_star 8y ago
Wikipedia has a good artist's conception picture of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT

bacon_waffle 8y ago

My favourite story about the construction of IceCube relates to the drilling of the holes to deploy the detector. They used two types of drill, which melt the firn (compacted snow) on top and ice lower down. One is a sort of conical heat exchanger, the other circulates water through a Big water heater on the surface. In the early days of South Pole Station (late 1950s), supplies were airdropped in - the cargo planes of that era couldn't land on the snow and going overland was very difficult. Many of the parachutes wouldn't open properly, and so lots of supplies (including a bulldozer) and parachutes wound up buried in the snow. South Pole slowly accumulates snow, so that debris has gotten deeper and deeper below the surface over time. Of course, the holes required to build IceCube had to go deeper than those supplies, but the drill can't go through things that don't melt, so in some cases the holes had to be moved off the nominal grid. According to the story I heard, one of the holes ran in to a bunch of meat, which floated to the top of the bore...

sohkamyung 8y ago
No mentions about finding meat here, but you might be interested in this story at IEEE Spectrum about the construction of IceCube from 2011 [1]. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/icecube-the-polar-particle-hunter https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/icecube-the...

ArtWomb 8y ago

Agreed. This is truly astounding. Neutrinos seem to encapsulate an unnaturally high degree of complexity and information in such a tiny package ;) Formalism of Neutrino Oscillations https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.05781.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.05781.pdf

oh_sigh 8y ago
I always thought that if an alien civilization is trying to communicate with earth, they would do it via neutrinos and not radio waves, because if you know where you are communicating to, you don't need to worry about signal attenuation as much as with EM waves.