Star Gazing in Italy ~ Why the Sun Shines
The article “Princeton scientists confirm longheld theory about
source of sunshine” states:
“Our observations [of low-energy solar neutrinos] essentially confirm that we understand how the sun shines,” said Frank Calaprice, a professor of physics and principal investigator of the Princeton team. “Physicists have had theories regarding the nuclear reactions within the sun for years, but direct observations have remained elusive. Now we understand these reactions much better.” [emphasis added]
The work is being conducted near the city of L’Aquila in Italy at the underground Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The article goes into more depth about how this small bit of evidence helps to answer many questions that have lingered due to previous generations of equipment that were not sensitive enough to make the observations.
Here’s the scientific abstract if you are so inclined:
First real time detection of 7Be solar neutrinos by Borexino
This paper reports a direct measurement of the 7Be solar neutrino signal rate performed with the Borexino low
background liquid scintillator detector. This is the first realtime spectral measurement of sub-MeV solar neutrinos. The result for 0.862 MeV 7Be is 47 ± 7stat ± 12sys counts/(day · 100 ton), consistent with predictions of Standard Solar Models and neutrino oscillations with LMA-MSW parameters.
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