A LONG-STANDING mystery about ghostly particles whizzing out of the Sun has
taken another twist. Scientists have found that the number of “ordinary”
neutrinos emerging varies as the Sun rotates.
Neutrinos produced by nuclear reactions deep within the Sun stream out at
almost the speed of light. Scientists had assumed that they emerge at a more or
less constant rate. But neutrino detectors on Earth have only detected about
half of the expected numbers.
Neutrinos come in three types: electron, muon and tau. Nuclear reactions in
the Sun create electron neutrinos, the only kind we can detect. However, these
may…
