This illustration shows a dust-obscured active galactic nucleus, similar to what must exist at the heart of galaxy Messier 77, located an estimated 47 million light-years away. This is the first non-blazar, non-supernova to be identified as an extragalactic neutrino source. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
IceCube just found an active galaxy in the nearby Universe, 47 million light-years away, through its neutrino emissions: a cosmic first.
Neutrinos are, in many ways, the most difficult species of known particle to detect at all. Produced wherever nuclear reactions or radioactive…