NASA sees moon lunar mining trial within the next decade

The first customers are expected to be commercial rocket companies who could use the moon's resources for fuel or oxygen.

June 28, 2023 12:18 pm | Updated 07:51 pm IST - BRISBANE

REUTERS

NASA is looking to develop resources on the moon that initially include oxygen and water, and eventually may expand to iron and rare earths, and has already taken steps toward excavating moon soil in 2032, a scientist said on Wednesday.

The U.S. space agency plans to return Americans to the moon as part of its Artemis mission, including the first woman and person of colour by 2025,
and to learn from the mission to facilitate a trip to Mars.

A key part of the mission is advancing commercial opportunities in space. The agency is looking to quantify potential resources, including energy, water and lunar soil, as a goal to attract commercial investment, said Gerald Sanders, a rocket scientist at NASA's Johnston Space Centre for 35 years.

Developing access to resources on the moon will be key to cutting costs and developing a circular economy, Mr. Sanders said.

"We are trying to invest in the exploration phase, understand the resources... to (lower) risk such that external investment makes sense that could lead to development and production," he told a mining conference in Brisbane.

"We are literally just scratching the surface," he said. NASA will at the end of the month send a test drill rig to the moon and plans a larger-scale excavation of moon soil, or regolith, and a pilot processing plant in 2032.

The first customers are expected to be commercial rocket companies who could use the moon's resources for fuel or oxygen.

The Australian Space Agency is involved in developing a semi-autonomous rover that will take regolith samples on a NASA mission as early as 2026, said Samuel Webster, an assistant director at the agency.

The rover will demonstrate the collection of lunar soil that contains oxygen in the form of oxides.

Using separate equipment sent to the moon with the rover, NASA will aim to extract that oxygen, he said.

"This ... is a key step towards establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon, as well (as) supporting future missions to Mars," he said at the conference.

Bolivia taps China, Russia’s Rosatom in bid to unlock huge lithium riches

Reuters | June 29, 2023 

The Uyuni salt flat is the largest in the world. Its crust covers covers a pool of brine that hosts most of Bolivia’s 9-million tonnes of lithium resources.(Reference image by Dimitry B, Flickr).

Bolivia has signed lithium agreements with Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom and China’s Citic Guoan Group, the South American country’s government said on Thursday, as it looks to develop its huge but largely untapped resources of the battery metal.


The deals, which envisage total investment of $1.4 billion, follow a similar agreement in January with giant Chinese battery maker CATL, another potential win for Beijing in its efforts to lock in supply of the metal used in electric vehicles.

“With these deals our country will be able to produce some 100,000 (metric) tons of lithium carbonate in 2025 in the Uyuni, Coipasa and Pasto Grandes salt flats,” Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy Franklin Molina said at an event in La Paz.

Bolivia’s iconic salt flats are home to the world’s largest lithium resources at 21 million tons, according to the US Geological Survey, but the country has long struggled to ramp up industrial production or develop commercially viable reserves.

Governments, mining firms, battery markets and carmakers worldwide from Tesla to BMW are scrambling to secure supply of the metal, which is needed for many of the batteries being used to power a major shift towards electric vehicles.

Molina said the investments would allow the construction of two direct lithium extraction (DLE) processing plants in the towns of Pasto Grande and Uyuni Norte, where at least 45,000 tons of lithium carbonate would be produced per year.

Russia’s Rosatom, which bid via its Uranium One Group unit, confirmed the news, saying it would invest $600 million in the project, its first large-scale lithium venture overseas, with planned annual capacity of 25,000 tons of lithium carbonate.

“There is the possibility of increasing capacity based on the results of geological exploration work,” Rosatom’s first deputy general director Kirill Komarov said in a statement.

Molina said Citic Guoan would invest $857 million and would also “look at investing in battery plants and the installation, possibly with technical studies, of a vehicle assembly plant, to create a true electric transport revolution.”

The deal with Uranium One Group was for feasibility and pre-investment studies, he said, adding multiple tests with Russian technology on the salt flats had shown a lithium recovery rate over 80%, with a purity of around 99.5%.

Along with Bolivia, neighbors Chile and Argentina make up the so-called “lithium triangle,” home to the world’s largest trove of the metal. Chile and Argentina are far more advanced in production, with projects often taking years to reach fruition.

(By Daniel Ramos, Maxim Rodionov and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Richard Chang)

World faces ‘terrifying’ future if miners, regulators don’t step up — Newcrest

Reuters | June 28, 2023 |

Newcrest’s Telfer gold-copper operation. (Image courtesy of Newcrest | Twitter.)

Regulators urgently need to fast track approvals for new mines and the renewable energy projects to power them to ensure the supply of minerals essential to averting climate change, gold miner Newcrest’s interim head said on Thursday.


“We are urgently off course and we need to course correct immediately,” Sherry Duhe, interim CEO of Australia’s top gold miner and a former oil industry executive, told a mining conference in Brisbane.

The mining industry needs to bring online the equivalent of 17 more Escondidas, the world’s biggest copper mine, by 2050, to meet demand projections, she said as an example of the scale of the problem.

Other metals, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, used in batteries and wind turbines, are also urgently needed for the energy transition.

Miners need to step up development by an order of magnitude and governments need to slash regulatory timelines and beef up regulatory staffing, as regulation is becoming more complex, including duplicated rules, Duhe said.

“The next five to 10 years are critical,” she said.

“The alternative is terrifying.”

Newcrest is relying on a wind farm to supply 40% of its electricity needs for its Cadia gold mine in New South Wales state, but that power project development is struggling with regulatory time frames.

Shareholders in Newcrest, which has gold and copper projects in Australia, Canada and Papua New Guinea, are due to vote later this year on a A$26.2 billion ($17.3 billion) takeover offer from Newmont Corp.

($1 = 1.5158 Australian dollars)

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Sonali Paul)

Fixing deep-sea mining damage would be double the cost of extraction — study

Reuters | June 29, 2023 | 

Patania II, a 25-tonne seabed mining robot, is lowered into the Pacific Ocean.

 Credit: DEME

Extracting minerals from the ocean floor could negatively impact biodiversity on a scale of up to 25 times greater than land-based mining, and fixing the damage would cost twice as much as extraction, a new report said on Thursday.


A search for alternatives to fossil fuels has driven demand for materials that go into batteries, some of which can be found on the seabed where ecosystems have yet to be fully explored.

Deep-sea mining would extract cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese from potato-sized nodules which pepper the sea floor at depths of 4-6 kilometres. The nodules are an essential habitat for many species.

The total biosphere impacted by this mining in international waters alone would be up to 75 million cubic kilometres, a greater volume than all the freshwater in the world, according to the report by non-profit Planet Tracker.

“Sadly, the nodules… take millions of years to form,” said François Mosnier, head of Oceans Programme at Planet Tracker, which warned resulting biodiversity loss could be permanent.

Related: Researchers detect 5,000 species threatened by deep sea mining

Advocates say deep sea ecosystem restoration, such as installing artificial clay nodules to replace those lost, could mitigate these impacts.

But this would cost between $5.3 – $5.7 million per square kilometre, compared with $2.7 million price per square kilometre to mine them, according to the report.

Seabed mining in international waters cannot start until the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a Jamaica-based UN body, decides on regulations expected by July.

Several countries, including Germany, and companies, such as Google, AB Volvo Group, and Samsung SDI are calling for a moratorium on the start of the practice.

Others are supporting it. Norway in June proposed opening parts of its extended continental shelf in the North Atlantic for mineral exploration.

“Any deep sea activity is hugely expensive. In Norway, we’re also talking the High Arctic. You have ice sheets floating around… really difficult weather conditions… there is a huge issue about the technological development and the funding needed for that,” said Kaja Loenne Fjaertoft a senior advisor at Sustainable Oceans with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

(By Clara Denina and David Stanway; Editing by Emma Rumney and Aurora Ellis)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DEEP SEA MINING 

UK to challenge court ruling against plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

The UK government said it would challenge a court ruling issued Thursday that blocks its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda on the grounds that the country is not a safe haven. For its part, the Rwandan government said it remains committed to the controversial deal.

Issued on: 29/06/2023 - 

Protestors demonstrate outside the Home Office against the British government's plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, in London, Britain, on June 13, 2022. © REUTERS - HENRY NICHOLLS

The Court of Appeal in London on Thursday ruled that the UK government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was "unlawful" as the East African country could not be considered safe.

Judges agreed with migrants and campaigners who brought the case to court, arguing that the UK government could not guarantee that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would not be sent back to the country from which they were fleeing.

The ruling was welcomed by human rights groups but sparked an indignant response from Kigali, which insisted it met UN standards for the treatment of refugees.

'Safe country'

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he respected the court but "fundamentally" disagreed with the judges' conclusions.

"I strongly believe the Rwandan government has provided the assurances necessary to ensure there is no real risk that asylum seekers relocated under the Rwanda policy would be wrongly returned to third countries," he said.

"Rwanda is a safe country," Sunak insisted. He added: "We will now seek permission to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court."

"Rwanda remains fully committed to making this partnership work," government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told French news agency AFP, insisting that "Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world".

"While this is ultimately a decision for the UK's judicial system, we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers and refugees," she said.

Humane alternatives

A majority of judges who studied the appeal were not convinced by Rwanda's assurances.

"In consequence, sending anyone to Rwanda would constitute a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights", which states that no one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, they concluded.

• Denmark may follow UK lead on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda

Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, called Thursday's verdict "some rare good news in an otherwise bleak landscape for human rights in the UK".

"Rather than treating human beings like cargo it can ship elsewhere, it (the government) should be focusing on ending the hostile environment towards refugees and asylum seekers," she added.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged the UK government to "pursue other measures, including cooperation with the UK's European neighbours and fair and fast asylum procedures, that would be more humane, efficient and cost-effective".

Stalled proposal

Tackling asylum claims has become a political headache for Sunak's Conservative government, which promised to "take back control" of the country's borders after the UK left the EU.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson brought in the contentious deportation proposal in 2022.

Rights groups and charities protested against the deportation plan, and the first removal flights due to take off last June were successfully blocked by legal action.

• UN, rights groups alarmed over British refugee deal with Rwanda

But two High Court judges in December dismissed the claims, ruling that the scheme was legal but the government should consider the circumstances of each case before deporting anyone.

That prompted a group of ten asylum seekers – from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania, plus the charity Asylum Aid – to appeal.

(with AFP)

 

Sunak's perilous waters: The PM will need all his experience as a City trader to find a safe harbour for Thames Water, says ALEX BRUMMER

By ALEX BRUMMER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 29 June 2023

Britain has never had a prime minister better able to understand the complexities of the debt markets and securitisation.

As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the acute choices the Government has to make if a safe harbour is to be secured for Thames Water.

There is the possibility of a straight- forward bailout on the lines of the rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds in 2008.

The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown reluctantly took equity stakes in the banks in exchange for a capital injection, diluting the shares of all other holders.

An injection of up to £10billion might be needed to stabilise Britain’s biggest water provider. 

Dilemma: As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the choices the Government has to make for Thames Water

If that is so, one imagines that other equity holders, including the Ontario Municipal Retirement System, Hermes (manager of the BT pension funds) and sovereign wealth investors from China and Abu Dhabi could be all but wiped out.

That may not be a good look for a post-Brexit Britain seeking to rocket fuel investment. An alternative rescue might seek to shift the burden to the holders of debt.

Investors in Kemble, Thames’ parent company, are already sitting on big losses with the £400million of bonds trading at 55p to the pound.

The bigger chunk of £14billion of debt, held in the name of Thames Water Utilities, would be a more meaningful target.

If Thames Water were Greece or Sri Lanka there would be a debt restructuring which would see the bondholders take a haircut – a reduction in value – in exchange for lowering interest rate coupons and stretching out the period of repayment.

Achieving such a financial restructuring, in the fierce political heat of the current moment, looks fairly far-fetched.

A short-term solution would be to force existing shareholders to pony up new capital, at least the £1billion promised, in exchange for the right of the regulator Ofwat to force through a hefty price rise.

That would allow the debts to be serviced and eventually a dividend paid. It would definitely be a simpler solution but wouldn’t do much for Rishi’s election prospects in the prosperous South East or help in his battle to halve Britain’s stubborn inflation rate by the end of the year.

The ideal route would be a white knight takeover in the manner of the Bulb rescue by Octopus or HSBC’s absorption of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK subsidiary.

That might also require some kind of credit guarantees and an implicit recognition that prices would have to rise.

One thing is certain: Macquarie, the ‘vampire kangaroo’ which triggered the mess, should not be allowed anywhere near valuable British infrastructure assets again.

Risk aversion

Meanwhile, over at HM Treasury, mandarins are seeking to lift the nation’s spirits with that promise to ‘rocket boost’ the UK economy now that the post-Brexit Financial Services bill has been signed off.

The key idea is to unlock £100billion of productive investment for innovation.

That is the prize for ditching Brussels bureaucracy in the shape of Solvency II. Never mind that City regulators wrote most of the EU rules in the first place! 

The aspiration to unlock new funding to drive investment in Britain’s leading-edge tech, AI and life sciences industries is admirable.

The Government can take asset managers to the water’s edge but may find it impossible to make them drink.

This week, ten of Britain’s biggest pension funds, which look after £300billion of assets, warned against proposed changes to the UK’s listing rules on the stock market on the grounds that it would damage ‘fundamental investor protections’.

It is this very lack of bravery and ambition which has seen fund managers retreat from UK equities and led to a calamitous 40 per cent collapse in UK listings since 2008.

Let’s hear it for the animal spirits!

Sounds of silence

OPEC decisions affect the lives of citizens and businesses around the world.

So it is extraordinary that, without warning, the oil producers’ group has decided to exclude news services and other media from its gathering in Vienna on July 5 and 6.

Saudi Arabia, which dominates proceedings, has been seeking to remove the shadow of the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. 

Banning the press from an event of enormous global interest, at a time of surging inflation, is not the way to go.

UK 

Ofgem plans clamp down on power station owners

Published: 16:10 29 Jun 2023

Ofgem is planning to clamp down on power station owners making “excessive profits” from supplying the UK electricity network.

The energy regulator said it intends to introduce new licence conditions after it found some generators have been holding back electricity supplies so they can fetch higher prices in the market for back-up power generation.

As a result, costs have been pushed for consumers at the height of last year’s energy crisis, resulting in a total bill of £3.1bn to ensure supply and demand matched in 2021-22.

“The proposed new licence condition will ensure electricity generators don’t take advantage of existing rules to make excessive profits in the Balancing Mechanism,” said Eleanor Warburton, Ofgem’s acting director for energy systems management and security.

“Following on from our previous consultation we are now inviting final feedback from across the industry on the proposed changes, which we hope to have in place to protect consumers this winter.” 

OpenAI sued for 'stealing' data from the public to train ChatGPT

A new class action lawsuit targets the data ChatGPT was trained on. Here's what it alleges and what it hopes to accomplish.

Written by Sabrina Ortiz, Associate Editor 

on June 29, 2023
ZDNET

Getty Images/PhonlamaiPhoto

OpenAI's wildly popular ChatGPT is a generative AI model that was trained on vasts amount of data, specifically the entirety of the internet prior to 2021.

The data ChatGPT was trained on is now the subject of a new lawsuit against OpenAI.

In a class action lawsuit filed on June 28 against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, the plaintiffs claim that OpenAI used "stolen data" to "train and develop" its products including ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4, DALL-E, and VALL-E.

Also: Human oversight key to keeping AI honest

The lawsuit claims that OpenAI stole data from "millions of unsuspecting consumers worldwide" including data from children of all ages to enable the chatbot to replicate human language.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that OpenAI is "harvesting massive amounts of personal data from the internet" such as private conversations, medical data, and more, without asking for users' permission.

Also: The best AI chatbots to try

A section of the 157-page lawsuit specifically delineates a list of private information that is allegedly being collected, stored, tracked, and shared by OpenAI including social media information, cookies, keystrokes, typed swatches, payment information, and more.

In addition, the list claims that OpenAI is collecting data from applications that have incorporated GPT-4 such as image-related data through Snapchat, music preferences in Spotify, and financial information in Stripe.

The plaintiffs ask that the defendants immediately implement transparency about what data it is collecting, where and from whom it collected it, and how it is being used. They also seek that all the plaintiffs and class members are compensated for their stolen data.

Also: AI arms race: This global index ranks which nations dominate AI development

Lastly, the plaintiffs seek that OpenAI introduces an option where users can opt out of all data collection and that OpenAI stops the "illegal" scraping of internet data.

This isn't the first lawsuit brought upon OpenAI. Earlier this month, OpenAI was sued because of misinformation that ChatGPT output about a person.

UNRAVELING THE COSMIC SYMPHONY: THE TOP 5 WAYS THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BACKGROUND DISCOVERY REVOLUTIONIZES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE

MJ BANIAS·JUNE 29, 2023

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) have detected a persistent gravitational wave background (GWB). The monumental finding, reported yesterday by the Washington Post, could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the universe and its origins.

Gravitational waves, first predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, are ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by the acceleration of massive objects. The detection of these waves has been a significant focus of astrophysics since the first direct observation by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015. However, the GWB detected by NANOGrav is a different beast altogether.

So let’s dive into the top five ways this discovery revolutionizes our understanding of the universe.

 
NEW ERA IN GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ASTRONOMY

The detection of the gravitational wave background (GWB) by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) marks a significant milestone in gravitational wave astronomy. Unlike the individual gravitational wave events detected by LIGO, the GWB is a persistent, “humming” signal resulting from countless unresolved sources. Dr. Sarah Burke-Spolaor, a member of the NANOGrav team, likens it to “a symphony of the universe.” This discovery ushers in a new era of gravitational wave astronomy, where we can listen to the cosmic symphony and uncover the secrets of the universe.

UNVEILING THE DANCE OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES

The GWB is thought to be largely composed of gravitational waves from pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling toward each other. These cosmic behemoths, each millions or billions of times the mass of our sun, have long been a subject of fascination and study. The detection of the GWB provides a unique opportunity to study these black hole pairs, offering insights into their behavior, their distribution in the universe, and the processes involved in their formation and evolution.

PROBING THE EARLY UNIVERSE

The GWB could potentially provide a window into the early universe, including the era of cosmic inflation, a brief period just after the Big Bang when the universe expanded at an astonishing rate. As Dr. Chiara Mingarelli, a scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics, explains, “The gravitational wave background could be a treasure trove of information about the early universe.” This could revolutionize our understanding of the Big Bang and the subsequent evolution of the universe.

TESTING THE LIMITS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which predicts the existence of gravitational waves, has passed every test so far. However, the detection of the GWB could provide a new testing ground for this theory. Dr. Mingarelli suggests that the GWB could help us “test the limits of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.” This could potentially lead to new insights into the nature of gravity and the fundamental laws of physics.

UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES OF DARK MATTER AND DARK ENERGY

Dark matter and dark energy are two of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. Together, they make up about 95% of the universe, but we know very little about them. The GWB could provide new clues about these elusive phenomena. As Dr. Mingarelli points out, the GWB could help us understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy. This could have profound implications for our understanding of the universe and its ultimate fate.


See Also
NASA ANOMALY REVIEW BOARD INVESTIGATES “INCIDENT” WITH THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE


The detection of the GWB by NANOGrav is a game-changer in the field of astrophysics. Still, the researchers caution that the detection of the GWB needs to be confirmed by independent observations, and there is much work to be done to understand its implications more fully.

Regardless, this discovery underscores the importance of patience, collaboration, and meticulous data collection in scientific research. More importantly, it highlights the power of gravitational waves as a tool for understanding the universe, from the dance of supermassive black holes to the earliest moments of the Big Bang. As we continue to listen to the “cosmic symphony,” who knows what other secrets we might uncover; perhaps, this will help us develop a better understanding of our place in the mysterious cosmos.


MJ Banias is a journalist and podcaster who covers security, science, and tech. Follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.

A neutrino portrait of our galaxy reveals high-energy particles from within the Milky Way

Jenni Adams
Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury

THE CONVERSATION
Published: June 29, 2023 

IceCube Collaboration/Science Communication Lab for CRC 1491

Our Milky Way galaxy is an awe-inspiring feature of the night sky, viewable with the naked eye as a hazy band of stars stretching from horizon to horizon.

For the first time, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has produced an image of the Milky Way using neutrinos – tiny, ghost-like astronomical messengers.

A portrait of the Milky Way combining visible light and neutrino emissions (in blue). IceCube Collaboration/US National Science Foundation (Lily Le & Shawn Johnson)/ESO (S. Brunier)

In research published today in the journal Science, the IceCube Collaboration – an international group of more than 350 scientists – presents evidence of high-energy neutrino emission coming from the Milky Way.

We have not yet figured out exactly where in our galaxy these particles are coming from. But today’s result brings us closer to finding some of the galaxy’s most extreme environments.

Read news coverage based on evidence, not alarm.Get newsletter
Neutrino astronomy

Neutrinos offer a unique view of the cosmos as they can travel directly from places no other radiation or particles can escape from. This makes them very interesting to astronomers, because neutrinos offer a window into the extreme cosmic environments that create another kind of particle called cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that permeate our Universe, but their origins are difficult to pin down. Cosmic rays are electrically charged, which means their path through space is scrambled by magnetic fields, and by the time one arrives at Earth there is no way to tell where it came from.

Read more: Spotting astrophysical neutrinos is just the tip of the IceCube

However, the environments that accelerate cosmic rays to extraordinary energies also produce neutrinos – and neutrinos have no electric charge, so they travel in nice straight lines. So if we can detect the path of neutrinos arriving at Earth, this will point back to where the neutrinos were created.

But detecting those neutrinos is not so easy.
How to hunt neutrinos

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is not far from the South Pole. It uses more than 5,000 light sensors arrayed throughout a cubic kilometre of pristine Antarctic ice to search for signs of high-energy neutrinos from our galaxy and beyond.

Vast numbers of neutrinos are streaming through Earth all the time, but only a tiny fraction of them bump into anything on their way through.

Each neutrino interaction makes a tiny flash of light – and those tiny flashes are what the IceCube sensors look out for. The direction and energy of the neutrino can be determined from the amount and pattern of light detected

.
IceCube Collaboration

IceCube has previously detected high-energy neutrinos coming from outside the Milky Way. However, it has been more challenging to isolate the lower-energy neutrinos coming from within our galaxy.

This is because some flashes IceCube detected can be traced to cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere, which create neutrinos and other particles called muons. To filter out these flashes, IceCube researchers have developed ways to distinguish particles created in the atmosphere and those from further afield by the shape of the light patterns they create in the ice.

Read more: An Antarctic neutrino telescope has detected a signal from the heart of a nearby active galaxy

Filtering out the unwanted detections has made IceCube more sensitive to astrophysical neutrinos. The final breakthrough that allowed the creation of a neutrino image of the Milky Way came from machine-learning methods that improve the identification of cascades of light produced by neutrinos, as well as the determination of the neutrino’s direction and energy.
Closing in on cosmic rays

The new neutrino lens on our galaxy will help reveal where the most powerful accelerators of galactic cosmic rays are located. We hope to learn how energetic these particles can get, and the inner workings of these high-energy galactic engines.

However, we are yet to pinpoint these accelerators within the Milky Way. The new IceCube analysis found evidence for neutrinos coming from broad regions of the galaxy, but was not able to discern individual sources.

Our team, at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the University of Adelaide in Australia, has a plan to realise that next step.

Five views of the Milky Way: the top two bands show visible light and gamma rays, while the lower three show expected and real neutrino results, plus a measure of the significance of neutrino events detected by IceCube. IceCube Collaboration

We are making models to predict the neutrino signal close to likely particle accelerators so we can target our searches for neutrinos.

Undergraduate student Rhia Hewett and PhD student Ryan Burley are examining pairs of accelerator candidates and molecular dust clouds. They plan to estimate the flux of neutrinos produced by cosmic rays interacting in the clouds, after the neutrinos travel from the accelerators.

They will use their results to enable a focused search of IceCube data for the sources of neutrino emissions. We believe this will provide the key to using IceCube to unlock the secrets of the most energetic processes in the Milky Way.

A timeline of neutrino astronomy. IceCube Collaboration

Author

Jenni Adams
Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury
Disclosure statement
Jenni Adams has received funding from the Marsden Fund Council from New Zealand Government funding, managed by the Royal Society Te Apārangi.