Free Republic

The spiral galaxy NGC 1068, also known as the squid galaxy, is a bustling 'Disneyland' of neutrino production, researchers said. At the heart of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1068, researchers found a thriving 'factory' of ghostly particles called neutrinos. A nearby spiral galaxy is pumping out ghostly neutrinos — mysterious particles that barely interact with the matter around them, scientists have found. The elusive particles are coming from a hotspot of neutrino production in the heart of the spiral galaxy Messier 77, which is anchored by a black hole. The region is rich in dense gas and electromagnetic fields,...

Enlarge Image Shining example. The GERDA experiment at the Gran Sasso lab in Italy has all but ruled out earlier claims for neutrinoless double-beta decay. Credit: The University of Tübingen A long-standing controversy among particle physicists looks to be settled—in the less exciting way—thanks to new data from an ultrasensitive particle detector deep underground. Physicists operating the GERmanium Detector Array (GERDA) 1400 meters down in Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory say that they see no signs of a hypothesized type of nuclear decay called neutrinoless double-beta decay that, were it conclusively observed, would almost certainly merit a Nobel Prize....

Eight months after the multinational Opera research team caused an uproar among physicists with its findings that some neutrinos appeared to travel faster than light, its findings have been officially refuted. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, on Friday said that four experiments have found that neutrinos actually travel no faster than the speed of light. Opera's original measurements can be attributed to a faulty element of its experiment's fiber optic timing system, CERN said. The findings were announced at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics in Kyoto, Japan, by CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci. Life...