Scientists Baffled By Mysterious Radio Waves Coming From Under Antarctica Ice
As per the researchers, the anomalous signal had to travel through thousands of kilometres of rock before reaching the detector. In typical circumstances, the distance and the distortions alone would have rendered the radio signal undetectable, but somehow it managed to reach the scientists.
"The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice," said Stephanie Wissel, associate professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics, who worked on the ANITA team.
The scientists discovered the radio waves accidentally while searching for neutrinos -- a type of particle with no charge, having the smallest mass of all subatomic particles. They are usually emitted by high-energy sources like the Sun or major cosmic events like supernovas or even the Big Bang.
"It's an interesting problem because we still don't actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are, but what we do know is that they're most likely not representing neutrinos," said Ms Wissel.
Mystery of anomalous particle
Ms Wissel added that you could have a billion neutrinos passing through you at any moment, but they don't interact with you.
"My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don't fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven't been able to find any of those yet either," she theorised. "So, right now, it's one of these long-standing mysteries."
Though the Penn State team does not have any answers about the anomalous signal currently, Ms Wissel is hopeful that the new detector, called PUEO, better at detecting neutrino signals, might solve the mystery.
"I'm excited that when we fly PUEO, we'll have better sensitivity. In principle, we should pick up more anomalies, and maybe we'll actually understand what they are."
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