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Prior to being lowered into the ice, the sensors are inspected once more. Photo: DESY
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South Pole: The World's Largest Neutrino Telescope
After almost six years of construction, the neutrino telescope "IceCube" now is completed. The world's largest particle detector was created at the South Pole in a cubic kilometre of ice interspersed with optical sensors. They capture traces of neutrinos from outer space in order to obtain information on distant galaxies. Neutrinos often are called phantom particles as they are able to pass through large amounts of matter without being detected. Their documentation therefore requires gigantic detectors. IceCube is installed deep in the Antarctic ice sheet underneath the American Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station right at the geographic South Pole. IceCube consists of 86 cables to which are attached 60 glass spheres in 1.45 and 2.45 kilometres depth respectively. The spheres contain highly sensitive optical sensors capturing the faint blue glow emanating from neutrino interaction. A quarter of these altogether over 5,000 optical sensors were contributed by German research groups and assembled and tested at the DESY site Zeuthen. The cables are arranged in 125 metres distance to each other, resulting in optical sensors being installed throughout an overall volume of one cubic kilometre. The project is conducted by an international consortium under the leadership of the American National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF also covered the greater part of the building costs amounting to 279 million US dollar.
