News Particle Physics

Forests might serve as enormous neutrino detectors 

To detect ultra-high energy neutrinos, scientists need huge detectors. Swaths of trees could help 

An image of a forest

Forests could be used to detect neutrinos, one scientist proposes. The trees could pick up radio waves produced as a result of interactions of the subatomic particles inside Earth.

Kevin Skipworth/500px/Getty Images

By Emily Conover

Neutrino detectors don’t grow on trees. Or do they? Forests could one day be used to spot ultra-high-energy neutrinos, a physicist proposes.

Trees could act as natural antennas that pick up radio waves produced by certain interactions of the difficult-to-detect subatomic particles, astroparticle physicist Steven Prohira proposes in a paper submitted January 25 at arXiv.