{"id":439234,"date":"2026-05-26T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-research\/science-enabling-technology\/technology-highlights\/new-instrument-used-antarctic-ice-sheet-to-probe-extreme-universe\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:00:00","slug":"new-instrument-used-antarctic-ice-sheet-to-probe-extreme-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=439234","title":{"rendered":"New Instrument Used Antarctic Ice Sheet to Probe Extreme Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/a><\/figure>
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This image shows PUEO at the Long Duration Balloon Facility in Antarctica, immediately after balloon release.<\/div>\n
Credit: NASA\/Scott Battaion<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) is a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission designed to detect the most energetic particles in the universe.\u00a0The\u00a0PUEO\u00a0mission\u00a0flew high above Antarctica on a Long Duration Balloon (LDB) and used the Antarctic ice sheet as an enormous detection volume\u00a0to look for radio signals generated by the interactions of extremely energetic astrophysical neutrinos as they passed through the ice. In addition to searching for the highest energy neutrinos, PUEO could also detect radio signals from high energy cosmic rays showering in Earth\u2019s atmosphere (a.k.a. air showers), either as the signals entered directly into the instrument or reflected off the ice below.\u00a0The\u00a0sensitivity achieved with the PUEO instrument was\u00a0a result of\u00a0technology\u00a0advancements and careful optimization of the experimental design to enable accommodation within the balloon platform\u2019s launch volume.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ultra-high energy neutrinos that PUEO was searching for carry information from the most extreme places in the universe, including supermassive black holes that accrete matter at the centers of galaxies, neutron star mergers, and other powerful cosmic accelerators. Because these particles travel large\u00a0distances along straight lines without being absorbed, they\u00a0provide\u00a0a unique view of the distant, most energetic universe. Not only will\u00a0data collected by\u00a0PUEO reveal the origin and composition of the highest-energy cosmic rays,\u00a0it\u00a0will also test fundamental physics at energies far beyond those achievable in human-made particle accelerators on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0PUEO\u00a0mission\u00a0built on heritage from the NASA-sponsored\u00a0Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) mission<\/a>, which had four successful flights from 2006-2016. Like ANITA, PUEO consisted of an array of radio-frequency antennas, an onboard data acquisition system that is triggered by neutrino-like signals and processes and saves the data, and a navigation and command and control system. From its 120,000-foot altitude, PUEO monitored an extremely large volume of Antarctic ice, looking for signals from\u00a0very rare, high-energy neutrino interactions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first of NASA\u2019s Astrophysics Pioneers missions\u00a0to launch, PUEO took off\u00a0Dec.\u00a020, 2025, from NASA\u2019s Long Duration Balloon Facility near McMurdo Station, Antarctica,\u00a0and flew for 23 days before landing\u00a0approximately 120\u00a0miles\u00a0(200 km)\u00a0from the South Pole. The full payload has been recovered, including the data drives. The PUEO team is currently analyzing the data collected\u2014an undertaking that may take up to a year due to the complex nature of the task.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Two<\/a><\/figure>
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The PUEO mission\u2019s on-ice integration team is seen here in front of the fully constructed instrument.<\/div>\n
Credit: Cosmin Deaconu<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The significant improvement in sensitivity achieved with the PUEO instrument compared to that of ANITA was due to a variety of\u00a0technology\u00a0advancements and careful optimization of the experimental design to enable accommodation within the balloon platform\u2019s constrained launch volume.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lowering\u00a0detection threshold\u00a0with\u00a0interferometric triggering<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\n

At the heart of PUEO\u2019s technology advancement was a new type of trigger called an interferometric phased array trigger. The PUEO\u00a0trigger\u00a0coherently summed signals from multiple antennas in real time, enabling the instrument to detect weaker signals than previously possible. By lowering the trigger threshold, PUEO could dig further into the noise, and find weaker neutrino and cosmic-ray signals than\u00a0previous\u00a0experiments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More\u00a0channels\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0physically\u00a0constrained\u00a0space<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\n

The\u00a0PUEO antenna collecting area for frequencies above 300 MHz was doubled compared to ANITA, improving the sensitivity to radio emission from particle interactions. To ensure the PUEO payload\u00a0remained within the allowable launch volume, the team increased the low-frequency cutoff of the PUEO antennas, which enabled them to be even smaller than those used on ANITA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Low-frequency instrument\u00a0for\u00a0air shower characterization<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h3>\n

To improve sensitivity to extensive air showers produced by cosmic rays and potentially neutrinos, PUEO incorporated a new low-frequency instrument that deployed once the payload reached float altitude (it would have been much too large to fit in the allowable launch volume in its flight configuration). This new low-frequency instrument incorporated antennas that are sensitive down to 50 MHz, and extended PUEOs sensitivity to air showers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/figure>
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This photo shows the inside of PUEO\u2019s Main Instrument Enclosure, where many of PUEO\u2019s electronics are housed.<\/div>\n
Credit: Eric Oberla<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Many of the\u00a0technology\u00a0advancements that were developed for PUEO may also be applicable for mission concepts under development that would use the lunar regolith as a detector for ultra-high energy cosmic rays, and other potential future radio missions on the moon.<\/p>\n

Project Lead:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Dr. Abigail\u00a0Vieregg,\u00a0David N. Schramm Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and professor of Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago,\u00a0assisted\u00a0by graduate student, Rachel\u00a0Scrandis\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sponsoring Organization(s):<\/strong>\u00a0NASA Astrophysics Division Pioneers Program\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) is a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission designed to detect the most energetic particles in the universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15612,15613,15924,15925],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astrophysics","category-astrophysics-division","category-science-enabling-technology","category-technology-highlights"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=439234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439235,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439234\/revisions\/439235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=439234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=439234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=439234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}