Case file · Cosmic event
'Bert' and 'Ernie': neutrinos from beyond the galaxy
In 2013 the IceCube observatory, a cubic kilometre of sensors frozen into the ice at the South Pole, announced two neutrinos with energies above a peta-electronvolt, nicknamed 'Bert' and 'Ernie', and evidence of a flux from outside the Solar System.
2013 CE · -89.99, -63.45 · status: official
The account
A third, 'Big Bird', followed. In July 2018 IceCube traced a neutrino detected in September 2017 to the blazar TXS 0506+056, 3.7 billion light-years away, the first identified source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. The South Pole hosts this physics because the ice is clear, deep and stable.