IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory

On 18 December 2010, a huge human task was accomplished. 5,160 spherical optical sensors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs) were transported and placed under the frozen surface of Antarctica. 52 institutions from 12 countries around the globe contributed (and still do) to this collaboration. The DOMs, attached to 86 vertical “strings”, cover a cubic-kilometer area from 1,450 meters to 2,450 meters depth (see Fig. 1) and are designed to indirectly detect neutrinos. Thus the first, and so far the only, cubic-kilometer neutrino telescope was born! This telescope is called the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory.  Neutrinos are electrically neutral subatomic particles that interact very rarely with matter. When they do…