The idea is from 1988. The instrument was ready in 2011. The first high-energy neutrinos came soon after.
Fact
The facts: on 6 October 2026 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”. Halzen first presented his idea for capturing neutrinos at the South Pole in 1988; a few years later, preliminary tests were done on sensors in ice. IceCube covers a cubic kilometre of ice equipped with light sensors and was finished in 2011. Researchers soon discovered the first high-energy neutrinos and, a few years later, published their discovery of neutrinos that must originate far outside our solar system. Halzen was born in 1944 in Tienen, Belgium, with a PhD from 1969 from KU Leuven. The prize amount is 12 million Swedish kronor. Mark Pearce, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, says: “Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a fantastic instrument. His tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.”
A neutrino passes through the Earth and through our bodies without us noticing. Very rarely one hits an atomic nucleus, and then there is a flash. Sensors set into something clear and still can catch the flash.
Ice is clear to light and does not shake.
The Academy explains it this way: the South Pole ice is free from interference and the area is geologically stable, with no earthquakes. High-energy neutrinos are very rare, so you need an enormous volume of ice to observe enough collisions; IceCube covers a full cubic kilometre. Unlike other particles, a neutrino reaches us without changing direction or losing energy, and so it carries information nothing else does.
Much about the sources of high-energy neutrinos is still a mystery: what they are, where they are and what happens inside them, the Academy writes. The instrument from 2011 is still collecting data.
Official primary sources
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences - Press release: Nobel Prize in Physics 2026, 06.10.2026NobelPrize.org - Nobel Prize in Physics 2026, summary (Prize share: 1/1)The visual is generated code-art, no third-party images.