News Astronomy

We may finally know the source of mysterious high-energy neutrinos

Growing evidence suggests active supermassive black holes are major factories for high-energy neutrinos

image of galaxy NGC 4151

NGC 4151 is a promising source of high-energy neutrinos and offers convincing evidence that active galaxies may be the source of most of these particles.

Joseph DePasquale, NASA, ESA

By Mara Johnson-Groh

Supermassive black holes at the hearts of active galaxies may be churning out a lot of the universe’s high-energy neutrinos.

Two teams using data from IceCube, the world’s premier neutrino observatory located in Antarctica, have independently identified a common type of these active galaxies, called Seyfert galaxies, as likely neutrino producers.