PARIS (AFP) — An international consortium of scientists has made the first detection of an elusive particle emitted by the Sun, which should help confirm theories as to how our star functions, France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said on Wednesday.
It is the first time that so-called low-energy neutrinos have been spotted directly, it said.
Neutrinos are uncharged elementary particles that are blasted out in vast amounts from the Sun as a result of thermonuclear fusion, and come in a wide range of energies.
Until now, detector technologies were able to spot high-energy neutrinos -- particles with a kinetic energy of more than five million electronvolts (eV) -- but were not sensitive enough for low-energy neutrinos, which have less than a million eV.
The breakthrough has come thanks to the year-old Borexino detector, located under Gran Sasso mountain in Italy's Apennine range, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Rome. The detector has been placed deep underground to shield it from other energy sources that could skew the results.
The discovery "will help physicists to better understand the nuclear reactions that take place in the heart of the Sun," the CNRS said.
The 10-year Borexino experiment gathers scientists from France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States.
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