Multimedia Gallery
Digital Optical Modules
View of signal cables from strings of digital optical modules that extend down into the ice, part of the IceCube Neutrino Detector. Elusive particles, called neutrinos, will be detected arriving from distant astrophysical sources and carrying information about those sources, just as rays of light reveal objects to conventional telescopes.
The IceCube Neutrino Detector is a neutrino telescope currently under construction at the South Pole. Like its predecessor, the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), IceCube is being constructed in deep Antarctic ice by deploying thousands of spherical optical sensors (photomultiplier tubes, or PMTs) at depths between 1,450 and 2,450 meters. The sensors are deployed on strings of 60 modules each, into holes in the ice that is melted using a hot water drill. The data that IceCube will collect will also contribute to our understanding of cosmic rays, supersymmetry, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS), and other aspects of nuclear and particle physics. To learn more, visit the IceCube Neutrino Detector website.
[IceCube is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant OPP 99-80474 (AMANDA) and OPP 02-36449 (IceCube).] (Date of Image: 2007)
Credit: Dr. Kathie L. Olsen, National Science Foundation
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