Neutrinos are everywhere, but they do not make themselves known. They pass all the way through the Earth and through our bodies without us noticing. This year’s physics laureate Francis Halzen realised that ice at the South Pole could be used to track these secretive particles. His vision, first presented in the late 1980s, led to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, that covers an entire cubic kilometre and was finished in 2011. Researchers soon discovered the first high-energy neutrinos and, a few years later, could publish their discovery of neutrinos that must originate far outside our solar system. “By detecting these neutrinos, we can learn something about cosmic sources which otherwise would not be accessible to us,” said Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. Listen to him explain more about the 2026 physics prize:

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“Without understanding neutrinos, we’ll never understand the universe.” Physics laureate Francis Halzen has laid the foundation for a new type of astronomy. His idea was to use naturally occurring ice, rather than water, to capture the secretive elementary particles called neutrinos. The result was the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which can track neutrinos that originate in the distant cosmos. So, why is it interesting to capture neutrinos? These elusive particles carry with them information about their sources. Since neutrinos have no electrical charge, they’re not deflected by the magnetic field between the earth and their distant cosmic sources. When these particles are detected and captured, we can learn more about where they are produced, for example the environment around a black hole. This knowledge about cosmic sources would otherwise not be accessible to us. When a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus, a charged particle can be produced which emits a blue light. This flash of light can be tracked by sensors in the clear glacial ice of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The South Pole’s ice has many advantages, as it is free from various types of interference and the area is geologically stable, with no earthquakes. Still, it was not an easy project. During the press conference, Francis Halzen commented on this: ”When I reflect on this at this moment, I have to emphasise how lucky I was. Because when we started this project, everybody realised it was a good idea, but very few thought it would work, including myself. This was kind of an adventure where success was not guaranteed. We were lucky to overcome the various challenges, partly because the talent of our collaborators and partly because of luck. It was a long journey but it finally worked.” Learn more at

Researchers have confirmed the neutrino signal that they had tentatively announced in 2024 – as Nature covered at the time – is in fact low-energy solar neutrinos scattering off electrons in the XENONnT detector. Read more about what this means for our understanding of dark matter in our 2024 story:

An underground facility investigating ghostly neutrinos, a parkrun celebrates its millionth event, and worker bees build 'royal palace' for their honeybee queen. All these stories and more are featured in the latest Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here:

The 2026 Nobel Prize is the third prize for neutrino astrophysics, not the first. A visionary engineering achievement by a distinguished physicist and his team. With great potential. But...

#DidYouKnow# there is a particle so elusive it is known as the ghost particle? The neutrino hardly ever interacts with matter – about 100 billion neutrinos pass through your thumbnail every second without you even noticing. The sun is the source of most of the neutrinos on earth.