# NASA's Fermi Links Cosmic Neutrino to Monster Black Hole

The discovery of a high-energy neutrino on Sept. 22, 2017, sent astronomers on a chase to locate its source -- a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy. Watch to learn more. For the first time ever, scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found the source of a high-energy neutrino from outside our galaxy. This neutrino travelled 3.7 billion years at nearly light speed before being detected on Earth -- farther than any other neutrino we know the origin of.

High-energy neutrinos are hard-to-catch particles that scientists think are created by the most powerful events in the cosmos, like galaxy mergers and material falling onto supermassive black holes. They travel a whisker shy of the speed of light and rarely interact with other matter, so they can travel unimpeded across billions of light-years.

On Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detected signs of a neutrino striking the Antarctic ice with an energy of about 300 trillion electron volts -- more than 45 times the energy achievable in the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth. This high energy strongly suggested that the neutrino had to be from beyond our solar system. Backtracking the path through IceCube indicated where in the sky the neutrino came from, and automated alerts notified astronomers around the globe to search this region for flares or outbursts that could be associated with the event.

Data from Fermi’s Large Area Telescope revealed enhanced…

- Kind: Short
- Year: 2018
- Runtime: 2 min
- By: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Genres: Space
- Archive: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA%27s_Fermi_Links_Cosmic_Neutrino_to_Monster_Black_Hole.webm)
- Licence or status: Public domain (as the archive states it)
- Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/commons/84845154?play=1)