Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IceCube Telescope Takes Shape Below Antarctic Ice

Posted by timothy on from the hard-mile-to-walk dept.

PabloSandoval48 writes "The world's largest telescope, currently under construction more than a mile beneath the Antarctic ice, is on schedule to be completed next year, according to a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, the lead institution for a scientific project called IceCube."

165 comments

  1. N.W.A. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This IceCube project is part of a secret plan by the New World Alliance to take over current infrastructure.

    1. Re:N.W.A. by Major+Downtime · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree. Evidence is hidden in plain sight:
      O'Shea Jackson (born June 15, 1969), better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, screenwriter, film director, and producer.
      He began his career as a member of C.I.A and later joined the rap group N.W.A

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Cube

    2. Re:N.W.A. by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      You are now about to witness the strength of scientific knowledge...

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:N.W.A. by Conchobair · · Score: 2, Funny

      I hear they have top doctors working on an easy plan to use yellow fever to infect humans via wild wrens. Leaving us nothing but doggs and bones with little to eat but M&Ms wishing we were an exibit on deathrow in the aftermath.

    4. Re:N.W.A. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard that they can do it, if they put their backs in to it

    5. Re:N.W.A. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      June 15, 1969 was a good day

    6. Re:N.W.A. by Chowderbags · · Score: 2, Funny

      And he's already committed crimes against humanity! Like "Are We There Yet?",and just when you thought it was bad, he made a sequel! This man must be stopped, perhaps by putting him someplace really cold, in fact I hear there's a continent if you go really far south that's just covered in ice...

    7. Re:N.W.A. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Let's not forget that NWA's debut album Straight Outta Compton was launched shortly before the orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Just what did come out of Compton? I suspect we shall never find out.

    8. Re:N.W.A. by bennomatic · · Score: 1

      Apparently, today was a good day for science.

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
  2. IceCube? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What, the rapper?

    No, seriously. I think I remember reading about this earlier this year in Scientific American or something ... only it was on a big lake in Russia and they worked during the winter when everything is frozen. Kind of cool, bleeding edge stuff.

    I gather that the one in the Antarctic will be bigger, and give a view in a different direction than the Russian one.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:IceCube? by zero.kalvin · · Score: 4, Informative

      You are taking about Baikal, it's a similar but on smaller scale. The Russians are hoping to join KM3NET in the future.

    2. Re:IceCube? by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 1

      And Anil Ananthaswamy covers both in a very entertaining way in "The Edge Of Physics", a cool look at the more practical side of physics - well worth a read, my brief review here: http://coolsciencebooks.blogspot.com/2010/04/edge-of-physics.html

      --
      Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    3. Re:IceCube? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      No, no... this is the all-new Ice Cube System! Of course, it also includes all the Zorg "Oldies but Goldies," like the rocket launcher, net launcher, and flamethrower.

  3. Interesting... by TrisexualPuppy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would there, however, be any benefit to having such a project set up under lunar regolith/base rock if we could ever get back to the moon?

    1. Re:Interesting... by zero.kalvin · · Score: 5, Informative

      As someone working in this exact field I would say no. Where are you going to put it ? The idea of burying it deep in a refracting medium is to eliminate cosmic rays as background noise, and allowing the neutrino to produce a muon which will do a Cherenkov light in the detector. You need a deep refracting medium for this, beside we use the whole earth as a detector because of the low cross-section the neutrino have. So with a smaller stellar body(the moon) you will have less neutrinos interacting, and this less data to work with.

    2. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering the post you're replying to...

      No. There is no benefit to setting up a project to have twittering Italian police officers smelling dog farts on the moon.

      Unless you were just replying to an off topic first post to try and elevate your position on the page for purposes of karma whoring, but why on Earth would somebody do that!?

    3. Re:Interesting... by mcelrath · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ice Cube operates by observing visible Cerenkov radiation from electrons and muons created when high-energy neutrinos hit an atom in the ice, as they traverse the ice. Of course, ice being transparent to visible light is important here, and lunar regolith is opaque to visible light.

      However it has been proposed to look for radio waves being emitted in a similar manner. Cerenkov radiation is caused by moving faster than the speed of light in the medium -- it's the "blue glow" if you look at the picture on that wikipedia link, and emits a broad spectrum of radiation, down into radio frequencies. Depending on the composition of the regolith, it may be transparent to radio waves. This can be done from the Earth by pointing your antenna at the moon, or from satellite(s) in orbit around the moon. You might be interested in the Goldstone project. So, at least with proposals I've heard about, getting people on the moon to make big holes is not an important component, but the surface of the moon may still be useful for similar experiments. You never know though, maybe tomorrow someone will post a new idea!

      --
      1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    4. Re:Interesting... by radtea · · Score: 4, Informative

      Would there, however, be any benefit to having such a project set up under lunar regolith/base rock if we could ever get back to the moon?

      Yes.

      The reason why: there are virtually no high-energy muons in lunar cosmic rays, and high-energy muons, one way or another, are the major cosmic-ray background in these experiments.

      The reason why there are virtually no high-energy muons in lunar cosmic rays is due to their primary mechanism of production: on Earth, cosmic-ray protons smack into atoms at the top of the atmosphere, producing high energy pions, which decay into muons etc... and because of the low density of the atmosphere, the decay time is much less than the stopping time, so the muons have most of the orignal energy of the primary cosmic ray available to them.

      On the Moon, which notably lacks an atmosphere, the primay cosmic rays smack into the lunar regolith and therefore the pions are created in a very dense medium, and lose most or all of their energy before decaying. The muons thus created are relatively low energy and stop within a few meters--as opposed to terrestrial cosmic ray muons which are still seen in experiments like the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, 2 kilometres underground.

      As such, a relatively small, relatively shallow detector on the Moon could produce comparable performance to the best terrestrial detectors, at only a few orders of magnitude higher cost.

      It may be worth mentioning that no one working in the field ever calls a neutrino detector a "telescope", as in English that word when used without qualification virtually always means "optical telescope", so the usage in this article is misleading and confusing, to the point where if were done deliberately I would consider the person doing it to be either stupid or dishonest. I guess maybe the person who wrote the article or provided the information for it has English as a second language.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    5. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because I've been see-sawing between "Good" and "Excellent" karma all day. It has flip-flopped THREE times today. Sucks when you're modded funny as a FP, and some douche mods you redundant. Interesting how a FP can be a redundant comment.
       
      Hey, might as well make use of someone's mod points. Karma farming FTW!

    6. Re:Interesting... by Intron · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess this is a bad time to mention the Giant Strobe Light Project that we're doing in the Antartic ice sheet.

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    7. Re:Interesting... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It may be worth mentioning that no one working in the field ever calls a neutrino detector a "telescope", as in English that word when used without qualification virtually always means "optical telescope", so the usage in this article is misleading and confusing, to the point where if were done deliberately I would consider the person doing it to be either stupid or dishonest. I guess maybe the person who wrote the article or provided the information for it has English as a second language.

      Sure, unqualified it implies optical, but on the other hand we have radio telescopes, infrared telescopes, x-ray telescopes, and gamma-ray telescopes. Why not the IceCube neutrino telescope? Surely, though, the lack of the word "neutrino" in the title and the summary was a gross omission.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    8. Re:Interesting... by TrisexualPuppy · · Score: 1

      I am TrisexualPuppy, and I approve this post!

      --TrisexualPuppy

    9. Re:Interesting... by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      How could I use neutrinos to produce muons which could be used to synthesize Cherenkov light on the moon? Wouldn't near vacuum conditions assist in more accurate light measurements?

    10. Re:Interesting... by kievit · · Score: 2, Informative

      I agree that the background reduction due to lack of atmosphere is very convenient, but as zero.kalvin points out, you still need a 'refracting medium', that is, a really large volume of transparent material such as water or ice (in which you can catch the Cherenkov light whenever a neutrino is kind enough to interact and produce fast charged particles). The large volume is not needed to suppress background, but to beat the very small cross section; in order to detect neutrinos you need them to interact with your detector, and the only way to achieve that is to make it as big as possible.

      There is ice on the Moon, but to harvest that and turn into a detector poses some interesting challenges. To use it in frozen form is hard, because you need it with a clarity and purity similar to the exceptionally clear deep Antarctic ice that IceCube uses and which is even clearer and purer than laboratory ice. To use it in liquid form requires keeping it heated, which is probably easier (you need a solar panel farm to power the heating system, but for the ice option you would also need those panels, to power the elaborate purification system + clear ice machinery). Either way: probably science fiction.

    11. Re:Interesting... by zero.kalvin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually yes, the near vacuum condition will help a lot on the angular resolution. But you will run into a lot of problems: The near vacuum conditions will mean that for the muon to create a Cherenkov light cone it would have to be hyper-relativistic. Since the muons energy is about 33% of that of the neutrino, most Energy fluxs are decreasing with energy(negative power laws), and with a lower stellar mass(of the moon). You will detect far less events in general, specially in the lower energy region. If you can place your detector in a refracting medium(let's say water), with a reasonably sized telescope (1km3), I will let you do the calculation on how much water we will need, with all the electronics problem that are associated with it.

    12. Re:Interesting... by radtea · · Score: 1

      The large volume is not needed to suppress background, but to beat the very small cross section; in order to detect neutrinos you need them to interact with your detector, and the only way to achieve that is to make it as big as possible.

      Yes, and then again no. I have designed and built (reactor) neutrino detectors that have a volume of less than a cubic metre (and some very impressive background-suppression tricks) and have detected reactor neutrinos (~10 m from the core).

      Background is not simply separable from rate. In particular, background tends to ramp up as energy goes down, so even though there are many more low-energy neutrinos in most interesting cases we typically are cut off at a few MeV because of backgrounds. The Moon offers a number of ultra-low background possibilities that may permit relatively low volume detectors to achieve interesting levels of performance.

      So while yeah, these huge detectors with cubic kilometers of active volume aren't to be sneezed at, lower volume detectors in ultra-low-background environments aren't necessarily going to have useable detection rates that scale linearly with the volume.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    13. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No one working in the field ever calls a neutrino detector a "telescope"" ?

      You mean like the people working on ANTARES "Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch"?

      Or the forerunner to IceCube itself, the AMANDA experiment "Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array", which had a logo of a penguin looking through a telescope downwards through the Earth?

      Of course, to be a telescope, these boondoggles would have to actually see something, of which we now know there's not much chance (based on what we see with gamma-ray telescopes which have made huge advances in the past 10 years). Still, I'm sure it's worth the 250M$ so as to have an American presence in the South Pole.

    14. Re:Interesting... by ModernGeek · · Score: 1

      Well I'm from the moon, and I say it wouldn't work.

      --
      Sig: I stole this sig.
    15. Re:Interesting... by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      I think we're going to need a bigger chunk of a ice type asteroid for this project. And as for the NASA, they're going to have to get a Conney built quickly so a crew of remote controlled robots can get the job completed.

  4. But... by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Funny

    We don't care about the Stars on the Southern hemisphere. Those are boring. The Northern Hemisphere stars are where its at.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      IceCube is a neutrino telescope which looks through the Earth to the Northern Hemisphere. The Earth basically acts as a filter removing potential background signals.

    2. Re:But... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
      You understand just why you came this way

      They were just playing that song on the radio a few minutes ago. You've obviously never been near the equator, where the Southern Cross appears near the horizon after sunset.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    3. Re:But... by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      That's ok. This telescope looks north.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    4. Re:But... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      They were just playing that song on the radio a few minutes ago. You've obviously never been near the equator, where the Southern Cross appears near the horizon after sunset.

      Ah, so that's what that is... I was wondering about that when I moved to Florida a couple years ago.

      --
      My blog
    5. Re:But... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      You can't see it from Florida if I remember correctly (I lived there from 1980-1985); you're nowhere near enough to the equator. I saw it in Thailand, which is damned close to the equator.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    6. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IceCube reps southside

    7. Re:But... by Deep+Penguin · · Score: 4, Informative

      But that's what it sees - the sensors point at the Earth and the filter software discards muon events that track from the sky, keeping events that come from underneath since muons coming from the Northern Hemisphere decay long before they can reach the detector. Neutrinos survive passing through thousands of miles of rock, so if it comes from the middle of the Earth, it's a neutrino. If it comes from the sky, it could be a neutrino, but chances are, it's a muon.

    8. Re:But... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      You can from Key West.

      I don't actually live there, but when my wife and I last took vacation, we could see a constellation clearly in the southern sky when were on a twilight cruise from Key West and we weren't sure what it was.

      --
      My blog
    9. Re:But... by Trogre · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing you've never seen the southern night sky :)

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    10. Re:But... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, the farthest south I went in Florida was Ft Lauderdale.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  5. It is a big problem by zero.kalvin · · Score: 1

    If something gets broken, it's a step backwards for them. At least here in Antares, a similar experiment in the Mediterranean, if something goes wrong we just send a boat to get the damaged line back to our laboratory to fix it. For example right now we are working on repairing and recalibration one of the damaged lines.

    1. Re:It is a big problem by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > If something gets broken, it's a step backwards for them.

      They can drill another hole and drop in a replacement. Presumably they've designed in some redundancy.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:It is a big problem by zero.kalvin · · Score: 1

      Actually no, they already had failures. And nothing was replaced. Once you place the line in the hole and pour the water back in, it's over for that particular line.

    3. Re:It is a big problem by vbraga · · Score: 1

      But can't you put another (new) line down another hole? Or the specific geometric configuration is important?

      --
      English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
    4. Re:It is a big problem by zero.kalvin · · Score: 1

      Yes and no, the lines has to be spaced out correctly. They can always add lines on the outer edges, but they do have a budget, and they can't keep adding lines forever.

    5. Re:It is a big problem by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      I'm sure they could add a new detector a few meters from a failed one and compensate for the deviation from perfect geometry in software: they have to have the ability to do that anyway. However, with 5000 detectors they've surely got enough redundancy to tolerate a few dead ones without significant degradation in performance.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    6. Re:It is a big problem by zero.kalvin · · Score: 3, Informative

      I did not say they have a big rate of failure. By detectors you mean OM, or optical modules. Optical modules are attached to each line. This problem can't be solved by compensating in the software. if you put your lines to close you will start having problems of the light produced by the muons not reaching other OMs and getting blocked very soon. Spacing is required as there is already few photons to work with. If an OM is out, it's over. if they have an electrical failure on one of the lines, it's over for that line. When it was on the sketch board, they took this in consideration, that's why it's big and with so many lines and OMs. But I repeat if it's out, it's out.

    7. Re:It is a big problem by IceCubeComm · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually they call the individual detectors DOMs-Digital Optical Modules. Each string has 60 DOMs on it (plus 4 DOMs on the surface config IceTop) and altogether there will be 86 strings. Right now there are 79. Of course they calibrate, test, re-test before deployment, and troubleshoot when there are problems, but yeah if a DOM is out it's out.

  6. Who cares? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Call me when they find Megatron.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    1. Re:Who cares? by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Funny

      Or some sort of ancient chair that shoots missiles into space.

    2. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already found that. Didn't you see the documentary?

    3. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or some sort of ancient chair that shoots missiles into space.

      or a temple where predators prove themselves

  7. Not a telescope by wagnerrp · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is an observatory, but not a telescope. It's an omnidirectional particle detector, not pointed at some distant star.

    1. Re:Not a telescope by zero.kalvin · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's the equivalent of telescope with a view range of 4*PI. You are looking everywhere at the same time.

    2. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It can infer the direction a neutrino came from, so (given enough time) it can make "images". In fact, they've seen the moon already, as a deficit of neutrinos coming from the moon's direction. It is a telescope, just one that doesn't "see" photons and that you don't have to point at a target to see it.

    3. Re:Not a telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is an observatory, but not a telescope. It's an omnidirectional particle detector, not pointed at some distant star.

      So what you are saying is that it is a Socialist telescope?

    4. Re:Not a telescope by nmos · · Score: 1

      ACK!! who the h*ll are they hiring over at EETimes these days?

    5. Re:Not a telescope by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Funny

      It is a telescope, just one that doesn't "see" photons

      Okay, I thinkI got it.

      and that you don't have to point at a target to see it.

      Now you're just screwing with me.

    6. Re:Not a telescope by Noughmad · · Score: 1

      They're planning to change their name to ETTimes.

      --
      PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
    7. Re:Not a telescope by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      This is an observatory, but not a telescope. It's an omnidirectional particle detector, not pointed at some distant star.

      Also, the part where it's not telescopic is a bit of a problem.

    8. Re:Not a telescope by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      The ability to make an image isn't the defining characteristic of a telescope. I can see the moon through my window, but it's no telescope.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    9. Re:Not a telescope by COMON$ · · Score: 1
      Yes, I read through the whole article looking for an explanation of why it is referred to as a telescope. Then I was scanning through these comments for someone to explain to me how this is a telescope, figuring somewhere there had to be a couple people duking out the actual meaning of telescope, or at least the difference between a telescope and a detector...why not a microscope...

      From Wikipedia

      A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation.

      A microscope is an instrument to see objects too small for the naked eye.

      An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events.

      Can anyone explain to this idiot (me) why this is considered a telescope?

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    10. Re:Not a telescope by IceCubeComm · · Score: 3, Informative

      An event reconstruction from the 79 string detector configuration https://blog.icecube.wisc.edu/?p=1355

    11. Re:Not a telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The definition of what should be called a telescope is ambiguous, and the sentence you quoted from Wikipedia is too limiting in my opinion. If you read a little bit further, the Wikipedia lemma also describes Cosmic Ray telescopes and neutrino telescopes...
      By my personal definition, IceCube is both an observatory and a telescope, as it has full sky coverage (actually it can see the Southern Hemisphere, just not as good) and very high up-time, and can also look at individual objects. Microscope... well, technically yes, but particle detectors at accelerator experiments are not usually called microscopes either. ;)

    12. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 1

      It's omni-directional. The detectors are placed in a way that it can detect the arrival of neutrinos coming from any direction (including, and specially, from below the horizon). This way, we can get a "whole sky" image at once, without moving anything in the experiment.

    13. Re:Not a telescope by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      I assumed they were using the term telescope to satisfy public curiosity, but it only served to confuse me further. It isn't actually looking at the sky though, nor can it see it from what I read, it simply sees reactions of the earth to neutrinos, the scientists then use that data to extrapolate what is happening in the universe. Much the same way that I can make observations about the weather by looking at the electronic thermometer in my bathroom, that doesn't make it Doppler radar..

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    14. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 1

      Your eyes are a "telescope". We usually reserve the word for instruments that let us examine astrophysical objects in a way that we can't do with our naked eyes, but an optical telescope works in exactly the same way as your eyes. Just change the retina for a CCD.

    15. Re:Not a telescope by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      So what makes it a telescope more than say a bunch of eyeballs?

    16. Re:Not a telescope by starfishsystems · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Agreed, at least provisionally. A telescope is an instrument which "sees" objects at a "distance". Whether the mechanism is optical or otherwise is not the point, it's how effectively the device can give us information about specific distant objects.

      This array is more like a scintillation counter. It measures local phenomena. Perhaps, opportunistically, it could be used to infer something about distant objects, but in that sense it's still no more a telescope than a light bulb is a power meter.

      --
      Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
    17. Re:Not a telescope by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

      and that you don't have to point at a target to see it.

      Now you're just screwing with me.

      You don't have to aim it at a target because it's already pointing in every direction all at once... just like a sphere.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    18. Re:Not a telescope by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      So what makes it a telescope then?

    19. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's ability to trace the sky using a carrier that was never explored in this way (except to "see" what happens in the sun, and during a nearby supernova).

      Using optical telescopes, we can get an image of how the universe looks in visible photons. In an x-ray telescope, we get an image of the universe in x-ray photons. In a cosmic ray telescope, we get an image in charged particles. IceCube (plus its northern sister, KM3Net) should be able to get an image of the universe in neutrinos with energies over 1 TeV.

    20. Re:Not a telescope by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1

      I thought it was using the the earth as a filter, and as such was basically "pointed" at the northern hemisphere?

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    21. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 1

      Yes, that is why it detects "specially" what comes from below the horizon (or from the northern sky). However, they have some sensitivity to downgoing neutrinos (coming from above the horizon, or from the southern sky), if they arrive with an energy so high that the atmospheric muon background at those energies would be negligible. Or, being more technically correct, they use an array of cosmic ray detectors in the surface to identify if an event whose energy is above a certain threshold and coming from "above" them (from the Southern sky) is due to a cosmic ray or to a neutrino.

      They will detect orders of magnitude more neutrinos from the north, but (if the flux is high enough) we can expect a few events from the south. Since their energy has to be very high, their direction can be measured very well, so you get an "image" of the southern sky. Of course, KM3NET (when built in the northern hemisphere) will do a better image of the southern sky, but we have to take what we have right now.

    22. Re:Not a telescope by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I think the point was that it may well be a scope, but from the descriptions given here, "telescope" doesn't seem right. Perhaps omniscope would be better.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    23. Re:Not a telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can it detect clandestine nuclear reactors?

    24. Re:Not a telescope by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Hey, do you know if IceCube has the capability to detect and identify neutralinos or other theorized neutrino-like particles?

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    25. Re:Not a telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not nearly enough resolution.

    26. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 1

      "Telescope" is used by astronomers and physicists in this sense: an instrument to study the sky. So, COBE/WMAP/Planck were microwave telescopes, Auger is a cosmic ray telescope, and IceCube is a neutrino telescope. The word was borrowed from optical telescopes to radio/x-ray telescopes, and from there to everything else. IceCube researchers call it a neutrino telescope, it's not an error by the article.

    27. Re:Not a telescope by Steve+Max · · Score: 1

      Not directly. IceCube in fact detects the Cherenkov radiation emitted by high energy muons when travelling on ice. It works as a neutrino detector because muons, despite having quite a long range, can't travel through the Earth; so a muon coming from "below" was necessarily created near the detector, and the only particle that exists freely, can cross the Earth and has a high enough cross section for muon creation is a muon-neutrino. Neutralinos can create muons through some processes in some models, but the effect would be completely obfuscated by neutrino-induced events.

      However, they can detect neutralinos (and other dark matter particles) indirectly. For a given particle to be considered as a dark matter candidate, it needs to be affected by gravitational fields. Therefore, any dark matter particle would accumulate on any large gravitational field, such as the galaxy centre or the Sun. In most models (and certainly for neutralinos), two dark matter particles could annihilate mutually, creating other, less massive particles; in almost every one of those decay modes, there are neutrinos in the final state. So, if the dark matter really exists and it's composed of neutralinos, we predict a flux of neutrinos coming from the Sun (with an energy well above those that come from the normal nuclear fusion), from the galaxy centre, and even from the centre of the Earth. These fluxes (or at least the one from the Sun) can be detected given enough time, at least for some possible dark matter models. Halzen and Hooper have a very good paper on this (Halzen, BTW, is one of the top heads for IceCube).

    28. Re:Not a telescope by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Fascinating, thanks for the link.

      I appreciated this line from the abstract: "We identify models where dark matter particles are beyond the reach of any planned direct detection experiments while being within reach of neutrino telescopes."

      So they're looking to cover the space that isn't covered by projects like CDMS, which does direct detection. Which only makes sense, but it's just exciting to me to see cutting-edge science tackling problems from multiple different angles simultaneously.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    29. Re:Not a telescope by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Then my words to respond to that would be:

      Mr. Scientist, shut the hell up when you hear someone using a scientific term wrong. If you can't even use "telescope" in a linguistically correct manner, you have no right to complain about a President who says nuke-lee-ur or everyone that doesn't know what units are or how to use them.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  8. Telescope? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not sure that a neutrino detector is any more of a telescope than the sensor that decides when it's time for the lights to come on at night.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    1. Re:Telescope? by Steve+Max · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why? It captures information from a flux of particles (not photons, but neutrinos in this case) emitted by astrophysical objects. It allows us to study properties of those objects (and of the detected particles as well). It doesn't have a resolution high enough to give us an "image" of most of those objects, but Hubble can't image most single stars too. IceCube won't give you a pretty picture for APOD, but it will do everything else we can do with an optical telescope, or a charged particle telescope such as Auger.

    2. Re:Telescope? by necro81 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wondered about this, too. I don't think that telescope is incorrect, exactly, but it would be better perhaps to call it an Observatory.

      The key feature of a telescope as I interpret the word is amplification of visual phenomena. It makes tiny things seem big. Perhaps the nitpickers would say that the main feature of a telescope is that it can resolve finer and finer details - I'd say that's the same thing. An ancillary of this is that it tends to gather a large amount of otherwise feeble light from some small field-of-view so that, when that field of view is zoomed in to occupy the whole of a sensor (a camera, the eye, etc.) there is still something there to see.

      This neutrino detector doesn't have any sort of magnification in that sense. It doesn't even work in the electromagnetic spectrum! It's purpose isn't to zoom in on a phenomenon, but to detect it and tell us where it came from. It doesn't zoom in. By that token I would say that it is an observatory, not a telescope. It does, however, have light amplification through the use of photomultipliers. And, by virtue of its size, can be thought of as having better resolving power and sensitivity than its predecessors. By measuring neutron flux intensity as a function of angular position, it should be able to produce a sky map much that those from more conventional (optical, radio, IR) telescopes. Does this make it a telescope? I don't know.

      For comparison, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory faced a similar challenge: it didn't have an aperture or light gathering and focusing mirrors common to "telescopes" of other wavelengths. It is not possible to do that with any materials we're familiar with - gamma rays are absorbed or pass right through; there can be no reflectance or refraction. GRO was, much like this neutrino experiment, a target that waited for gamma rays to pass through. Once they did the instruments would figure out their energy and where in the sky their originated from. Notice that they called it an "observatory", not a "telescope."

    3. Re:Telescope? by radtea · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why? It captures information from a flux of particles (not photons, but neutrinos in this case) emitted by astrophysical objects.

      Because when speaking to a broad audience it behooves scientists to avoid terminology that they know will be confusing and misleading to laypeople. Anything else is an abrogation of their responsibility to communicate science clearly and unambiguously to the public.

      Besides, no one in these fields ever calls anything like this an (unqualified) telescope. So the purpose of doing so for a general audience seems to me to be solely to mislead and confuse, and I'm not at all clear why anyone would want to do that.

      Curiously, the link you provide to Auger describes it as a "cosmic ray observatory", almost as if the people who created the site were scientists, aware of their responsibility to communicate clearly.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    4. Re:Telescope? by mrops · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think amplification is the wrong criteria to define a telescope, a better criteria would be "convergence" or "focusing" of whatever spectrum we are looking at. That is the only common theme I can see in a Telescope, they all converge large amount of spectrum to a focal point. This may not be in a physical sense and may be done inside of a computer via munging of captured data from various physical detectors.

      In that respect, I still come to the same conclusion, that this is not a telescope.

    5. Re:Telescope? by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      actually it is looking at events created locally by neutrinos from my understanding, it isn't actually recording ANY remote events. Of course by this logic you could consider any telescope just to be recording particles that hit the telescope. But I maintain this is more of a microscope than a telescope.

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    6. Re:Telescope? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      This may not be in a physical sense and may be done inside of a computer via munging of captured data from various physical detectors.

      In that respect, I still come to the same conclusion, that this is not a telescope.

      Um, if you accept that a telescope need not focus by using physical reflection but by combining data from multiple detectors distributed over an area, then this would most definitely be a telescope in that respect.

      If we must for some reason draw a distinction between traditional telescopes and IceCube (i.e. we're not being pedantic, we're deliberately defining the term to exclude IceCube), then I'd draw it where you didn't, at requiring physical reflection/refraction to focus.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    7. Re:Telescope? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Besides, no one in these fields ever calls anything like this an (unqualified) telescope.

      Yeah, but they do say things like radio telescope or x-ray telescope, and those are very different from what most laypeople think of as a telescope. I certainly think that omitting the word "neutrino" was a big mistake, but does it go beyond that? The question is, can it be called a type of telescope?

      Curiously, the link you provide to Auger describes it as a "cosmic ray observatory", almost as if the people who created the site were scientists, aware of their responsibility to communicate clearly.

      "Observatory" doesn't mean "not a telescope" though. Observatories are facilities that contain instruments, frequently including telescopes. Auger is a facility, so regardless of what is in it they're going to call it an observatory. McDonald Observatory contains the Hobby-Eberly telescope and a couple others, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory contains two gamma ray telescopes.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    8. Re:Telescope? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > That is the only common theme I can see in a Telescope, they all converge
      > large amount of spectrum to a focal point. This may not be in a physical
      > sense and may be done inside of a computer via munging of captured data from
      > various physical detectors.

      That's what this device does.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    9. Re:Telescope? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      Why? It captures information from a flux of particles emitted by astrophysical objects.

      So does the sensor on my roof that detects sunlight, but I don't refer to that thing as a telescope. It's a sensor, or a detector, not a telescope.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    10. Re:Telescope? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > actually it is looking at events created locally by neutrinos from my
      > understanding, it isn't actually recording ANY remote events.

      And a CCD array just looks at events created locally by photons.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    11. Re:Telescope? by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      Anything else is an abrogation of their responsibility to communicate science clearly and unambiguously to the public.

      The only time theres a 'responsibility' to communicate science 'clearly and unambiguously to the public' is when a government administration is trying to justify public spending on science to the electorate.

      And thats not a responsibility of the scientists.

      The scientist has a responsibility to communicate science clearly and unambiguously to OTHER SCIENTISTS.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    12. Re:Telescope? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Theoretically, you could toss a raw CCD on the floor and take a 180 degree picture. You'd need some fancy software that probably doesn't exist at the moment. But would it be a camera? Would it be a telescope? I assert neither, and that this observatory is neither as well.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    13. Re:Telescope? by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      thus my qualification of my remark with the following sentence. at least a CCD is recording the photons hitting the array. The 'telescope' in this instance isnt even doing that. The equivalent would be taking a picture of a sunburn and calling that a UV radiation sensor...

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    14. Re:Telescope? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The key feature of a telescope...

      I'd consider the key feature of a telescope to be the ability to view (-scope) things at a distance (tele-). On that basis, it qualifies.

  9. This could be an more epic failure... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...than those Polish researchers who built an exoplanet telescope in a cave. They found a total of 0 planets.

  10. is it just me by iveygman · · Score: 1

    ...or does this sound like somebody's been reading too many with Dr Doom in them?

  11. Mythbusters-style by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did anybody else imagine a huge lense made of ice like they made in Mythbusters to light a fire?

  12. World's largest, eh? by chargersfan420 · · Score: 1

    The world's largest telescope...

    Does the Hubble not count because it is located in space?

    1. Re:World's largest, eh? by zero.kalvin · · Score: 1

      Hubble looks more like a tiny ant toy in comparison!

    2. Re:World's largest, eh? by chill · · Score: 1

      Uh...the Hubble is 13.2 m long with a maximum diameter of 4.2 m, or a volume of about 183 cubic m. This thing has a volume of about 1,000 cubic m.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    3. Re:World's largest, eh? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I see what you did there ... it goes the other way round!

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:World's largest, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      One cubic kilometer is not 1000 cubic meters.

    5. Re:World's largest, eh? by John+Hasler · · Score: 3, Informative

      > This thing has a volume of about 1,000 cubic m.

      1 cubic km. That's 10E9 cubic m.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    6. Re:World's largest, eh? by atrain728 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It probably doesn't count because it's smaller.

    7. Re:World's largest, eh? by chill · · Score: 1

      Thanks. I knew I shouldn't have changed units. :-)

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    8. Re:World's largest, eh? by chargersfan420 · · Score: 1

      Right, but this thing isn't finished yet. I'm just talking in general, though. Does "World's Largest" imply "manmade", or "located on earth"?

    9. Re:World's largest, eh? by ekgringo · · Score: 2, Funny

      You don't happen to work for NASA by any chance, do you?

    10. Re:World's largest, eh? by chill · · Score: 1

      Honestly, I work in the building next door in D.C.! :-)

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    11. Re:World's largest, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      > This thing has a volume of about 1,000 cubic m.

      1 cubic km. That's 10E9 cubic m.

      No, 1E9 cubic meters.

    12. Re:World's largest, eh? by Deep+Penguin · · Score: 1

      Yep... and since the density of water is ~1g/cm^3 (1000kg/m^3), it's a *billion tons* of water perfused with sensors.

    13. Re:World's largest, eh? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Hubble doesn't count because it's nowhere near the largest. It doesn't even make the top 50 list, more like around 55'ish. The Hubble gets great images because it is in space, and doesn't have to deal with atmosphere and light pollution. It can also catch wavelengths that are largely absorbed by the atmosphere, like infra-red and UV. That makes it extremely useful, however almost all of the ultra-long range research (~13 billion light years) is done with earth based telescopes and fancy corrective software to account for the affect of the atmosphere.

      The two largest telescopes are each about four times larger than the Hubble.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    14. Re:World's largest, eh? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1

      Hubble's aperture size is only about 2.5m though, which means it doesn't even crack the top 50 of large optical telescopes.

      Since this is a very odd kind of optical telescope, when it goes in it will dwarf everything for a very, very long time (well, except other ones just like it ;).

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  13. Stargate cover story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We all know this is a government cover-up of the Stargate program.

  14. MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I want to see tha answer 2 this

  15. IceCube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For a minute there I thought I was reading that Hip Hop artist IceCube was building a telescope...... What is wrong with me today....

  16. Re:Aliens put it there by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Close, they're just digging for the other Stargate and the chair.

  17. In the distant future by AnAdventurer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anyone/anything will wonder what on earth [sic] this is.

    --
    6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
    1. Re:In the distant future by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > Anyone/anything will wonder what on earth [sic] this is.

      Especially after the ice melts and it's all lying in a tangled mess on the ground.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:In the distant future by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, it will be quite apparent that it is our ill-advised polar ice-cap melting apparatus, which was ultimately the cause of our downfall.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  18. Bad headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was intrigued because I assumed it was an infrared telescope. Placing it in an ice tube in the Antarctic would make some sense. Neutrino detectors are as much a telescope as a thermometer is an imaging device.

  19. so The chair is really still there? by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 3, Funny

    so The chair is really still there?

  20. close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but not quite. It's cover for our project to accurately atalog the effect on Earth as we move through the densest portion of the galactic ecliptic.
    muhhahahhahahaha

  21. IceCube telescope by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Straight outta Antarctica?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:IceCube telescope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      F*** the Pole-ece

  22. Muons, not neutrinos by mangu · · Score: 5, Informative

    they've seen the moon already, as a deficit of neutrinos coming from the moon's direction.

    There's a deficit of muons, not neutrinos, from the moon's direction. Neutrinos pass through the moon easily.

    1. Re:Muons, not neutrinos by Deep+Penguin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not all the neutrinos, just nearly all. The moon is large enough to catch a statistically discernible (to IceCube) amount of neutrinos, casting a "neutrino shadow" on the Earth.

    2. Re:Muons, not neutrinos by EigenHombre · · Score: 1

      Not all the neutrinos, just nearly all. The moon is large enough to catch a statistically discernible (to IceCube) amount of neutrinos, casting a "neutrino shadow" on the Earth.

      In principle, a 'neutrino shadow' might be visible, given a sufficiently large detector running for a long enough time; but the paper reported on the muon shadow 'cast' by the moon (I am a member of the Collaboration in question).

      --
      EOT
  23. Largest "telescope"? by DiracFeynman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not so sure if this can be considered the largest. What about the VLA or LIGO?

    1. Re:Largest "telescope"? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      I think it qualifies readily as most voluminous.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:Largest "telescope"? by DiracFeynman · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but for a telescope (especially one that detects the elusive neutrino) it makes sense to have a larger area (not volume).

    3. Re:Largest "telescope"? by treeves · · Score: 1

      For a telescope that detects photons (the normal meaning of telescope) area is key, because pretty much all the photons (or at least a large fraction) that are "collected" end up triggering the sensor (CCD, film, whatever) even when it is thin. For neutrinos, they hardly interact with matter at all, and the larger volume is needed. The neutrino detection experiment in Japan (I can't recall its name at the moment) is basically a huge tank of water underground surrounded by detectors that detect flashes of light created when the neutrinos interact with the water (I'm sure someone here will correct me on the details, but that is the gist of it).

      --
      ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
    4. Re:Largest "telescope"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VLA is tiny, compared to LOFAR

  24. PCI by kershalt · · Score: 1

    FTA: "Essentially, we only have one chance to get this right."
    ...
    "The DOR card collects the data from the DOMs and transmits it via a standard PCI bus to a CPU in the DOMhub. From the DOMhub the information is moved to a string processor by TCP/IP Ethernet and to other processors for software triggering and event building. "

    Now if they are trying to "get it right the first time" shouldn't they reconsider the PCI bus being phased out? Just a thought...

    -C

    1. Re:PCI by John+Hasler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > ...shouldn't they reconsider the PCI bus being phased out...

      It is just barely possible that they might consider vendors other than Intel. Hint: ISA industrial stuff is still available.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:PCI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now if they are trying to "get it right the first time" shouldn't they reconsider the PCI bus being phased out? Just a thought...

      Why do you think it matters if it's being phased out. The article says the array will be complete next year and they can't access the parts to service them. You should know that, considering that's why they have to "get it right the first time". I realize that the discussion on every science article on Slashdot is dominated by armchair scientist who think that after (maybe) reading an article they've figured out stuff that dozens of full time professionals never consider, but this one is stupider than most.

    3. Re:PCI by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      This should have been moderated "+3 Snarky", not "+3 Insightful".

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  25. next project to be called by Theoboley · · Score: 1

    Project Day-Day

    --
    Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
  26. Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Been there. Done that. Got the winterover Antarctic Service medal.

    Beware the Penguin, who lurks in Ice Cube spaces. He is known to usurp wine, scotch, and good will. And you shall know him by his pony tail and air-bass.

    Bonus: Verifier word: "hideous." For reals.

  27. Telescope Unreachable for Repairs by lymond01 · · Score: 1

    A mile down?
    Beneath arctic ice?
    And a cable's come loose?

    Hummer 4 announced at low, low cost! Buy three today!

  28. Waste of time by Nesman64 · · Score: 1

    They should have run this one by Al Gore first. Don't they know global warming is about to sink them? Any minute now...

    --
    coffee | nose > keyboard
  29. Compton has multiple gamma ray telescopes in it :P by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

    The key feature of a telescope as I interpret the word is amplification of visual phenomena. It makes tiny things seem big.

    This neutrino detector doesn't have any sort of magnification in that sense. It doesn't even work in the electromagnetic spectrum! It's purpose isn't to zoom in on a phenomenon, but to detect it and tell us where it came from. It doesn't zoom in.

    Sure it does. It allows you to take a source of infrequent interactions and amplifies them by increasing the size of the detector. This is what electromagnetic telescopes do. A faint source of photons is amplified by increasing the collection area. A faint source of neutrinos is amplified by IceCube. The biggest difference is simply that photon interactions are much more probable than neutrino interactions, like a traditional a telescope that was looking at an object so distant only a few photons arrived per year,.

    It's quite analogous, and I see no problem with calling IceCube a neutrino telescope. I'd call the facility as a whole an Observatory, because that's what an observatory is -- a facility which contains instruments for astronomical observation. An observatory is not itself an instrument.

    Notice that they called [the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory]an "observatory", not a "telescope."

    That's because it contains multiple instruments, including the COMPTEL Imaging Compton Telescope and the EGRET Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope.

    So see? There are gamma ray telescopes that are called telescopes. Neutrino telescope may be more of a stretch, but I think it still applies for the same reason it does for gamma ray 'scopes -- it amplifies rarefied astronomical phenomenon.

    Just to clarify the distinction between telescope and observatory, Hubble is also refered to as an Observatory from time to time, though its only main instrument is a single telescope so we call it the HST. It, Compton, Chandra, and Spitzer are collectively called The Great Observatories. Because those words are not exclusive, quite the opposite in that an observatory typically contains a telescope.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  30. You can do it put your back into it.... by babywhiz · · Score: 1

    I can do it put .... wait.....

  31. Very cool, but we've got a bigger one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, this is very cool. However, the largest telescope ever built already exists and is centred here in Drenthe in the Netherlands. LOFAR is over a thousand kilometres in diameter. More details here: http://www.lofar.org/

  32. Re:Compton has multiple gamma ray telescopes in it by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

    I think it's correct to call IceCube an observatory, but not a telescope. All telescopes are observatories, but the inverse isn't true. Observatory is a broad term (my house can be an observatory), but telescope refers to a specific kind of instrument (I definitely do not live in a telescope).

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  33. Re:Compton has multiple gamma ray telescopes in it by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

    That was the point of my last paragraph... Observatories are facilities that contain astronomical instruments. But you don't call the instrument itself an observatory whether that instrument is a telescope or not.

    There should be no dispute whatsoever that IceCube is an observatory. But I think it is fair to call it a neutrino telescope as well.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  34. Only 10 years too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly they are attempting to initiate Second Impact. I'd stay out of the southern hemisphere this September.

  35. Able to see WIMPs by PiMuNu · · Score: 1

    The detector is fascinating because it can be used to look at a different class of object that may or may not exist. For example, any object that interacts weakly but not electromagnetically would be visible. So if one were to imagine dark matter, for example, was weakly interacting, it might allow a direct observation of dark matter objects. nb ANTARES is another one they talk about to be built under the mediterranean. There a major background is biological - algae growing on the detectors and stuff(!)

  36. As seen in "The Edge of Physics" by protonbishop · · Score: 1

    All detailed in Anil Ananthaswamy's very readable The Edge of Physics (Book's website). They "dig" the holes using hot water from a very long hose. Pretty interesting. Anil also covers the similar (but smaller) installation in the Russia's Lake Baikal.

  37. Ice Cube? by PPH · · Score: 2, Funny

    Personally, I welcome our hip hop astronomer overlords.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  38. Nice but... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 1

    How will they get past the Predator pyramid and avoid the Aliens?? Seems like a big risk to me.

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  39. To fix the oil spill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dude, can we put these guys to work in the Gulf?

  40. Wait, why are we speculating? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Informative

    The IceCube website and U Wisc. says it's a telescope. So, case closed as far as I'm concerned.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  41. Re:Compton has multiple gamma ray telescopes in it by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

    In any case, the U. Wisc. team that is running the project calls it a telescope. So I'm going with that.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  42. You are now about to witness by up2ng · · Score: 1

    the strength of geek knowledge..........

    Ahhhh forget it, i wont start with the N.W.A. stuff............

    --
    Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
  43. Re:Aliens put it there by instarx · · Score: 1

    I'm at the South Pole right now (yes, really), and I have been here for 4.5 months of winter and have another 4.5 months to go before the next flight in - and you have no concept of how unfunny that was. Of the 47 people here, two will not shut up about the F'ing Stagate that's buried here. Grrrrrr.

  44. Sometimes... (serious post) by zerospeaks · · Score: 1

    Sometimes the sheer enormity of mankinds ability to use intuition to expand it's knowledge brings a slight watering to the corner of my eye. Despite all the destruction we have caused directly, one can still find beauty in the simple wondering and searching of an ape that once stood up and asked. Why?

    --
    http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
  45. Re:Aliens put it there by supertrinko · · Score: 1

    "that's buried here" - That is buried here - That 'is' buried here. We have confirmation!

    --
    If it rhymes it must be true.
  46. Somebody in this camp ain't what he appears to be. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whatever they find whilst digging in the ice, I'm sure Kurt Russell can handle it.

  47. Re:Aliens put it there by instarx · · Score: 1

    Oh my God, I've contributed to it. Luckily there are no guns here so I can't shoot myself.