The mysterious signal coming from beneath Antarctica’s ice: Scientists can’t explain its origin

Such is the vastness of Antarctica, in addition to the relatively little amount of time humans spend there, we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised to learn there are many unknowns about the Earth’s southernmost continent. One such mystery concerns unexplained signals coming from below the ice, which have perplexed scientists for more than a decade.

Unusual discovery in the search for neutrinos

Researchers discovered unknown radio waves under the ice while looking for neutrinos. Neutrinos are subatomic particles that have no electric charge and very little mass, which makes them very difficult to detect. Such is their abundance, billions of neutrinos pass through our bodies every second, although they do interact with water and ice. It is believed the discovery of neutrinos could shed further light on the gravity of the universe.

NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, which flew balloons carrying instruments above Antarctica between 2006 and 2016, initially suspected the waves that had been picked up were neutrinos, only to discover otherwise.

Although scientists knew the waves weren’t neutrinos, they have been unable to pinpoint what they actually were ever since.

Signals that defy particle physics

Because the signals came from below the horizon, it was hypothesized they had passed through thousands of miles of rock before reaching the ANITA detector. However, as radio waves, under ‘normal’ circumstances, should have been absorbed by the rock, the research team concluded that the current understanding of particle physics wasn’t sufficient to explain the signals.

Some experts believe the waves that were detected are a different kind of neutrino, called a tau neutrino, which can regenerate. However, that idea has been dismissed by others due to the steepness of the angle connected to the waves.

How the Antarctica mystery could be solved

To add to the mystery, a number of follow-up experiments have been unable to locate the waves. Scientists believe larger and more powerful detectors may be required to solve the puzzle, as well as locate those elusive neutrinos.

NASA’s Payload for Ultra-High Energy Observations (PUEO), a new detector, will fly over Antarctica for a month starting in December 2025, which offers hope a breakthrough could soon be made.

“Right now, it’s one of these long-standing mysteries,” said Stephanie Wissel, associate professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics at the Penn State University. “I’m excited that when we fly PUEO, we’ll have better sensitivity. In principle, we should be able to better understand these anomalies which will go a long way to understanding our backgrounds and ultimately detecting neutrinos in the future.”

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