They captured special signals in Antarctica. They don’t know where they come from
Experiment Anita searches for neutrins.
The experiment in Antarctica captured two strange radio signals that contradict contemporary knowledge of particle physics.
The balloon called Anita, nicknamed Anita, was designed to capture cosmic radio waves, instead caught the signals that came from under the horizon – from the area below the ice surface.
Not a neutrino?
Anita flew over Antarctic ice four times in the range of 2006 to 2016. Traditionally, it examined radio waves, from the rainfall from space. Thus, scientists and scientists obtained information about various space events.
Unusual signals appeared in data from 2006 and 2014. In March 2025 on observations have published a study in Physical Review Letters.
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« The radio waves we captured were at a really steep angle, about thirty degrees below the ice surface, » explains in a press release of the University Penn astrophyse of Stephanie Wissel.
Although Anita was not primarily intended to search for neutrins, she was also able to capture signals from them. These particles also pass through the human body. Neutrine are without charge and have a very low weight. Thanks to these properties, they react very rarely with the mass and therefore nicknamed the elusive particles.
Scientists see them only by creating other particles that can capture detectors as Anita. In Antarctica there are great conditions for such examination, because the risk of disturbing signals is low here.
But from the data it was clear that what captured the balloon devices in two cases is probably not the result of interaction of neutrino with matter. The characteristics of the signal – as a steep angle – were very bizarre and did not resemble what Anita normally captured.
An effect we don’t understand
Other devices in Antarctica, such as IceCube experiment, have not caught any similar signals at the same time as Anita. Therefore, scientists had to call the results an anomaly.
Signals do not match the standard particle physics model, and although there have been claims that this could be a hint of dark matter, the lack of subsequent observations using other devices refutes this hypothesis. Dark mass is a hypothetical mass to form a significant part of the universe, but its existence has not yet been directly confirmed, as it is invisible to common observation methods.
According to Wissel, the explanation will be somewhere else.
« I assume that there is some interesting effect of radio signal spread near the ice and also near the horizon, which we do not fully understand. We have already explored them and we have not yet found either of them, » says Wissel.
A new and more sensitive Pueo, which is supposed to replace Anita, could help to decipher the mystery. He should be released for his first flight soon. Its main task will be to search for particles from precipitation neutrinos with matter.
« In principle, we should capture more anomalies and maybe we really understand what they are. We could also reveal neutrino, which would be much more exciting in a sense, » adds the scientist.
