The sun isn't turned off

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From: pauld@exploratorium.edu
Date: Sat Aug 31 2002 - 14:10:37 PDT 

Message-Id: <200208312110.g7VLAaH15868@isaac.exploratorium.edu>
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu
Subject: The sun isn't turned off
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 14:10:36 US/Pacific

Physicists at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory have detected the number of
neutrinos they expect from the sun. (For the last two decades physicists have
only been able to catch 1/3 of the expected number of neutrinos.)

The previous detectors could only detect one of the three types of neutrinos
(called electron neutrinos.) That didn't seem to be a problem since the sun makes
electron neutrinos. The Sudbury detector uses heavy water which is sensitive to
all three flavors of neutrinos. By detecting all three flavors the number of
neutrinos detected became equal to the number that astronomers expected to be
emitted by the sun.

The recent discovery shows that neutrinos change flavors from electron to muon to
tau as they travel to the earth. By the time they get here only 1/3 of them are
in the original electron flavor.

This discovery also means that neutrinos have rest mass.

I've been waiting for the solution to this scientific puzzle for a decade!

Paul Doherty

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