Scientists have produced an image of the Milky Way not based on electromagnetic radiation - light - but on ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos. They detected high-energy neutrinos in pristine ice deep below Antarctica's surface, then traced their source back to locations in the Milky Way - the first time these particles have been observed arising from our galaxy.

The neutrinos were detected over a span of a decade at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at a U.S. scientific research station at the South Pole, using more than 5,000 sensors covering an area the size of a small mountain.

School of Physics Professor Ignacio Taboada is the spokesperson for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and provides a brief commentary on this new research:

"This observation is ground-breaking. It established the galaxy as a neutrino source. Every future work will refer to this observation," says Taboada.

Every few seconds, somewhere in the observable Universe, a massive star collapses and unleashes a supernova explosion. Physicists say Japan’s Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) observatory might now be collecting a steady trickle of neutrinos from those cataclysms — amounting to a few detections a year.

In an article published in Nature, School of Physics Professor Ignacio Taboada provides a brief commentary on this new research: "The data from Super-K are still too weak to claim a discovery, but the prospect of detecting the diffuse neutrinos is extremely exciting”, says Tabaoda, who is also the spokesperson for the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole. “Neutrinos would provide an independent measurement on the history of star formation in the Universe.”