Why Nobel physicist Francis Halzen built a giant ice cube to catch 'ghost particles'
Nobel laureate Francis Halzen was recognized for his work on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, which detects elusive 'ghost particles' from space. The observatory uses clear glacial ice to track flashes of light caused by neutrino collisions.
Why it matters
Neutrino detection provides fundamental insights into the origins of the universe and high-energy cosmic phenomena.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 has been awarded to a Belgian particle physicist, Prof Francis Halzen, for his fundamental contribution to establishing an enormous ice block observatory in the South Pole that detects neutrinos, the ghost particles from outer space.Let us understand what these ghost particles are and why Halzen's contribution is so relevantWhat are 'ghost' particlesThe neutrino is a tiny subatomic particle that has no charge. It weighs so little that its mass couldn't be measured yet. However, they are the most abundant particles, with a mass, in the universe.They are generated whenever atomic nuclei fuse, as occurs in the Sun, or split apart, as occurs in a fission reactor or a particle accelerator.These "ghost particles" are elusive and almost never interact with other matter.
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Physics Nobel 2026 goes to Francis Halzen for discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin
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