Belgian Physicist Francis Halzen Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica
Belgian physicist Francis Halzen, 82, has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his central role in conceiving and building the IceCube Neutrino Observatory; the world’s largest particle detector, buried beneath the South Pole. TheConversation
Halzen first proposed the idea in 1988, recognising that the crystal-clear ancient ice beneath Antarctica could serve as a natural detection medium. Completed in 2011, IceCube spans one cubic kilometre of ice at nearly a mile of depth, housing 5,160 optical sensors that capture faint flashes of light produced when neutrinos, subatomic “ghost particles”, collide with atomic nuclei.
Neutrinos carry no electric charge and almost no mass, allowing them to pass through planets and stars unaltered. That same quality makes them invaluable: they travel in straight lines from their sources, carrying uncontaminated information across the universe. IceCube has used them to trace high-energy cosmic rays to supermassive black holes (2017), identify an active galaxy 47 million light-years away (2022), and produce the first neutrino-based image of the Milky Way (2023).
“It opens a new window on the universe,” the Nobel Committee noted, one that light alone cannot provide. Read our previous article on Science related news here.
