Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
Mysterious Radio Waves Detected Beneath Antarctic Ice Leave Scientists Baffled
Last Updated:June 15, 2025, 20:31 IST
The scientists detected the radio waves at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice.
The world’s largest iceberg in Antarctica (Reuters image used for representation)
In a significant development in the field of research, a team of US researchers conducting cosmic experiments over Antarctica have stumbled upon an unexpected mystery—radio signals beaming up from deep beneath the ice.
The scientists were aiming to track elusive particles known as neutrinos using the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), a high-altitude balloon experiment launched to detect cosmic phenomena. But instead, they found something that shouldn’t have been there at all.
“The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,” said Stephanie Wissel, a physics professor at Penn State, in a university release, according to the New York Post.
“The waves would have had to go through thousands of kilometres of rock and would have been absorbed into the rocks,” he added.
Wissel and her colleagues were hunting neutrinos—nearly massless particles emitted by distant cosmic events that rarely interact with matter.
“So, this is the double-edged sword problem,” she explained.
“If we detect them, it means they have traveled all this way without interacting with anything else. We could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable universe.”
against other experiments, the signals didn’t match known neutrino patterns.
However, after the findings were cross-checked against other experiments, the signals didn’t match known neutrino patterns.
Though some theories suggest the cause could be dark matter, Wissel admits, “My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effects occur near ice and also near the horizon that I don’t fully understand.”
For now, the mystery remains buried—alongside the signals—under the Antarctic ice.
- First Published:
News world Mysterious Radio Waves Detected Beneath Antarctic Ice Leave Scientists Baffled
[ad_1]
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
[ad_2]
Comments are closed.