Neutrinos are subatomic particles created by the fusion processes in the cores of all stars, human-made particle accelerators, and other natural processes. Nearly massless, these bizarre particles rarely interact with other matter; neutrinos are theoretically able to pass through a light-year of lead without hitting the nucleus of a single atom. About 100 trillion solar neutrinos pass through your body each second! Imagine how many are pouring out into the cosmos from our Sun alone!

Gerry Chevrier will discuss how neutrinos are created, and how we study these elusive particles.

Cover Image: This is the highest energy neutrino ever observed, with an estimated energy of 1.14 PeV. It was detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole on Jan. 3, 2012. IceCube physicists named it Ernie. Twenty-eight events with energies around and above 30 TeV were observed in an all-sky search, conducted between May 2010 and May 2012, for high-energy neutrino events with vertices contained in the IceCube neutrino detector. Credit: IceCube Collaboration