The world’s largest neutrino telescope is being constructed on and under Antarctica ice. Known as IceCube, the telescope consists of strings of 60 optical detectors, each string more than half a mile long and frozen in the ice. Atop each string is a pair of 600 gallon tanks filled with clear ice and containing two optical detectors

When it is completed in 2011, IceCube will provide “new information about some of the most violent and far-away astrophysical events in the cosmos,” says Thomas Gaisser, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, and one of the project’s lead scientists. The team’s recent work is reported in a news release from the university, one of 33 institutions in the National Science Foundation project.

The surface detectors will measure cascades of neutrino particles generated by high-energy cosmic rays. The under-the-ice detectors will monitor neutrinos passing up through the planet.

 The neutrino telescope uses the glacier ice as the detector mass. This has meant that crews work three shifts in the Antarctic summer’s 24-hour days of sunlight to drill holes more than a mile deep.  

The crews also post reader-friendly reports with many photos and graphics to help the rest of the world understand more about the telescope and life at the South Pole at Dispatches from a Frozen Frontier.

 IceCube is an upgraded version of the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) operated from 1996 to 2004.