Ten big science stories of 2018

[Stu]

Some interesting ones in here.

BBC News - Ten big science stories of 2018
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46388260

[kippford]

All very interesting thank you.

This one fact though "it's estimated that a single neutrino particle can pass through a light-year (about 10 trillion km) of lead without hitting a single atom." 

Wow!! 

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, kippford said:

All very interesting thank you.

This one fact though "it's estimated that a single neutrino particle can pass through a light-year (about 10 trillion km) of lead without hitting a single atom." 

Yes, I thought that one was a bit much, seeing as we can actually detect them now. I guess there are some many of the constantly streaming through the earth that by sheer chance one must hit a detector every so often. I wonder what the detection rate is.

[Tiki]

On ‎26‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 15:52, Stu said:

Yes, I thought that one was a bit much, seeing as we can actually detect them now. I guess there are some many of the constantly streaming through the earth that by sheer chance one must hit a detector every so often. I wonder what the detection rate is.

Not very high.

SN 1987A let out a burst of about 10^58 neutinos (which in terms of energy is more than 100 times the amount of energy emitted by the sun in its lifetime). At 160,000 ly distance, the IMB and Kamiokande neutrino detectors combined, encountered a 12 second burst of about  10^16 (only)  neutrinos from the SN. There were 20 detections (flashes of Cerenkov radiation).

 

Cerenkov radiation is pretty neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation