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The "Shadow Blaster" Galaxy's Role in High-energy Cosmic Neutrinos

A conceptual view of the neutrino accelerator in the starburst galaxy “Shadow Blaster”. It lies in the same direction as the high-energy neutrino event IC 210922A. Actual radio observations by ALMA are shown in the zoom-in inset. Due to gravitational lensing, the ALMA observations show four distorted images of Shadow Blaster, which has been identified as the source of the neutrinos (indicated by the Greek letter nu). An artist’s conception of Shadow Blaster’s true appearance is shown in the circle. Credit: MITOS

On September 22, 2021, the IceCube Neutrino Detector in Antarctica caught a blast of neutrinos as it passed through the solar system. These neutrinos were remarkably high-energy and came from a galaxy 11 billion light-years away. That's a period of the Universe's history known as "Cosmic Noon". It's when star formation in galaxies was at its most active and that provided an interesting clue to their origin. The source of the neutrinos was nicknamed "Shadow Blaster" because the event that created the neutrinos was hidden by a dense cloud of dust, which made it invisible to optical observations.



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