Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SNO Releases First Results

Posted by Hemos on from the data-coming-at-you dept.

DoctorNathaniel writes "The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory has just released it's first results. SNO is basically a big tank of heavy water in a deep, dark mine in Canada that is used to detect particles coming from the sun. This result is very cool to anyone following the the science of neutrino oscillations: the new data goes a step further to proving neutrinos have mass, and that neutrinos from the sun can 'change flavour' into different kinds of neutrino. The data exclude "sterile" solar neutrinos. This data expands and compliments the results announced by Super-Kamiokande in the last few years. My glee in all this is of course partially due to the fact that I'm a collaborator on the SNO project.... a regular 'SNO-flake'."

6 comments

  1. Re:Actually, this is very interesting by Kibo · · Score: 2

    Neutrinos have a mass of about .1 eV at last check.

    --
    --Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
  2. Neutrinos by NickFusion · · Score: 2

    These neutrinos they've found sound much better than the oldtrinos.

    --
    What were you expecting?
  3. Neutrino oscillations by Vuarnet · · Score: 3

    This result is very cool to anyone following the the science of neutrino oscillations.
    Yeah, all 6 of you must be having a party right now.

    ("the the science?")
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

    --
    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
    Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
    1. Re:Neutrino oscillations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Give it a rest. Just because you might not be interested in particle physics, doesn't mean that others aren't.

  4. Actually, this is very interesting by potifar · · Score: 1

    Finally there is some good indications that neutrinos do have mass. This is very exciting news -- not quite as exciting as if somefound found the Higgs particle, but close. I coulnd't find any information on their website though concerning how big the mass of the neutrinos is. A couple of eV, I would guess. It will interesting to see the results. (Background: Many people have though that neutrinos make up a large part of the so called "dark matter" in the universe.)

  5. New name for rejected submissions... by Myself · · Score: 2

    News-trinos: Tiny headlines, carrying almost no weight, which move at the speed of light. Only extremely rarely does a newstrino cause an observable reaction.

    Think about it. How many particles pass through Slashdot's submission queue, and only about 10 per day are picked up by the detectors?