Chasing the Ghost Particle
From one of the most remote locations on Earth to the unexplored regions of the cosmos, Chasing the Ghost Particle: From the South Pole to the Edge of the Universe will take you on a journey you will never forget.
The fulldome planetarium show Chasing the Ghost Particle: From the South Pole to the Edge of the Universe, opening November 21, 2013 at the Milwaukee Public Museum, will run Thursdays at 5:30 and 6:30 pm through January 30, 2014. Credit: WIPAC, MPM
The story begins in deep space, billions of years ago. Extreme conditions, such as black holes or exploding stars, created very high-energy neutrinos that travel unaffected across galaxies and even through stars. Today, at the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory searches for those neutrinos that teams of scientists study to learn about our universe.
Credit: WIPAC, MPM
Neutrinos are extremely small particles that very rarely interact with matter. They are difficult to detect, and that's why they have been dubbed "ghost particles." Credit: WIPA, MPM
Chasing the Ghost Particle exposes viewers to the experience of living and working in the harsh conditions at the South Pole. Large project construction, in a landscape dominated by a vast expanse of snow and ice requires expertise, technical innovation, and the supportive collaboration of a devoted team. Credit: Nils Irland, WIPAC, MPM
IceCube Staff (James Roth, U of Delaware) took a special camera to the South Pole during the 2012-13 season to shoot video for Chasing the Ghost Particle. This film is a co-production of the Milwaukee Public Museum and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Credit: WIPAC/MPM
The show tells the incredible story of how an international team of scientists and engineers transformed one billion tons of Antarctic ice into a telescope. Building such a machine was a titanic endeavor driven by the human passion for discover. Credit: WIPAC, MPM
Tak the astounding journey inside the IceCube detector where, deep in the ice at the heart of Antarctica, over five thousand light sensors wait to capture traces of the ghost particle.
IceCube has allowed scientists to launch a hunt for some of the most elusive particles in our universe, neutrinos. These high-energy neutrinos give us an exclusive way to study powerful cosmic engines like exploding stars and black holes. This illustration shows one of the highest energy neutrino events ever measured superimposed on the Mendota lakefront to give a sense of the enormous size of the IceCube detector.
Credit: UW-Madison University Communications/Jeff Miller, WIPAC, MPM
From one of the most remote locations on Earth to the unexplored regions of the cosmos, Chasing the Ghost Particle: From the South Pole to the Edge of the Universe will take you on a journey you will never forget.