VERITAS tagged posts

This artist’s conception shows a blazar – the core of an active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. Scientists using the VERITAS array have detected gamma rays from the blazar TXS 0506+056, which is also thought to be a source of neutrinos. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

The VERITAS array has confirmed the detection of gamma rays from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole. While these detections are relatively common for VERITAS, this black hole is potentially the first known astrophysical source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, a type of ghostly subatomic particle.

On September 22, 2017 the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer neutrino telescope located at the South Pole, detected a high-energy neutrino of potential astrophysical origin...

This artist’s conception shows a blazar — the core of an active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The VERITAS array has detected gamma rays from a blazar known as PKS 1441+25. Researchers found that the source of the gamma rays was within the relativistic jet but surprisingly far from the galaxy’s black hole. The emitting region is at least a tenth of a light-year away, and most likely is 5 light-years away. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

In April 2015, after traveling for about half the age of the universe, a flood of powerful gamma rays from a distant galaxy slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. That torrent generated a cascade of light – a shower that fell onto the waiting mirrors of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) in Arizona...