A Deep Hole in the Pole
AMANDA望远镜（新华社电讯稿用的是“南极μ介子和高能中微子探测器阵列”名字），被埋藏在南极冰块下1.5公里深处。路透社2001年3月21日报道，这台望远镜首次探测到中微子。中微子的发现将为科学家研究神秘的黑洞、γ射线爆发和恒星爆炸提供启示。这台望远镜有667个光学模块，它在冰层深处往下看而不是往上看以寻找宇宙射线与大气层碰撞后出现的大气中微子。
'A Deep Hole in the Pole' on today's moment of science.
Nowadays we have telescopes of all different sorts, from ones that orbit the planet to giant radio dishes in the deserts. The neatest new idea for a telescope, though, is a deep hole in the pole.
AMANDA II stands for Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array. You know what “Antarctic” means: this baby lives at the south pole. The international project members who built it dug half a mile down into polar ice. Then they lowered in a series of light detectors, on the lookout for one of the most elusive particles in the universe: the neutrino.
Neutrinos are so tiny and zippy they can pass through the entire planet without hitting anything. Every now and then, however, one will collide with something–say a water molecule in the crystal-clear polar ice. When neutrino meets molecule, tell-tale flashes are given off,and AMANDA registers these.
Now comes the really neat part: that makes AMANDA into a kind of telescope. Imagine some cool extra-galactic event, like a supernova or the collision of two black holes. This gives off a stream of neutrinos, some of which travel to earth and make it almost through the planet, only to tag a water molecule on the way out.
AMANDA spots the collision and, because neutrinos travel in straight lines, tells exactly which direction the neutrino came from. With that,scientists can generate a neutrino map of the sky.
Telescopes are old, but a neutrino telescope is new. Odd as it may sound, this deep hole in the ice is helping researchers dig even deeper into space and time. |