For more than 100 years, scientists have puzzled over the source of the high-energy cosmic rays that continuously pelt our Earth's atmosphere. Neutrinos are the only particles in the radiation that allow direct conclusions to be drawn about its sources - but they are extremely difficult to detect. In recent years, physicists at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have been able to identify two extragalactic objects as sources of high-energy neutrinos: a very distant blazar and a supermassive black hole at the center of a neighboring galaxy.
Now, for the first time, researchers have also observed neutrinos from the galactic plane of the Milky Way. Where the neutrinos come from and what we can learn from them about our galaxy will be discussed by Dr. Martina Karl from the Technical University of Munich with the audience at this Café & Kosmos evening.