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Even worse, most neutrino detectors rely on being under thick masses of rock to filter out things like cosmic rays, which would otherwise completely flood the d
by FreeFull 8y ago
Even worse, most neutrino detectors rely on being under thick masses of rock to filter out things like cosmic rays, which would otherwise completely flood the detectors.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoSo what you're saying is we need to capture an icy asteroid and stick a probe in it?
- BurningFrog 8y agoAnd somehow not have it melt next to the sun.
- lisper 8y agoThat would actually be the least of your worries. Ice is actually a pretty good insulator because it doesn't convect. Comets are giant snowballs. They regularly venture close to the sun and only lose a small percentage of their mass.
- simonh 8y agoThe ice would need to be very clear, surrounded by a grid of detectors, and all of that surrounded by a minimum of several hundreds of metres of rock on all sides. The reason it needs to be clear is the detector watches for flashes of Cherenkov radiation.
- Taniwha 8y agocough .... IceCube .... cough
- magicalhippo 8y agoIceCube uses the entire earth as a shield. Basically only neutrinos going up through the detector is considered.
- Taniwha 8y agoI guess that depends on how you define 'up' (are you looking at the entire planet or standing on the pole) As I understand it these days they grab all samples and are now able to distinguish 'downward' coming neutrinos from cosmic rays in software
- flukus 8y agoHow flooded are we talking? A detector in orbit would regularly have an earth sized mass of rock between it and the sun so the difference could be teased out statistically for low values of flooded.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]