Francis Halzen’s Nobel Prize highlights a new way to study cosmic accelerators. IceCube detects their elusive neutrinos, but a detector signal is only the first step. Identifying a source requires reconstruction, background tests and evidence from the wider sky.
Why it matters
Neutrinos can reveal energetic processes that magnetic deflection or photon absorption makes difficult to study otherwise. Understanding how source claims are built helps readers distinguish a measured excess from a model of the engine behind it.
