Astronomers have traced a high-energy neutrino to a distant galaxy powered by intense star formation rather than a supermassive black hole. The finding challenges previous assumptions about the origins of cosmic neutrinos.
Researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to study the neutrino event IC 210922A detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. They focused on galaxy JCMT0402−0424, located about 11 billion light-years from Earth and nicknamed Shadow Blaster due to its dust-obscured brightness.
Initial expectations pointed to a black hole as the power source. Observations instead revealed a compact core of gas and dust heated by rapid star formation, aided by gravitational lensing from a foreground galaxy.
The team from institutions including MITOS Science Co., LTD. and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan concluded that such starburst galaxies could produce up to 20 percent of the universe's high-energy neutrinos. The results were published in Nature Astronomy in 2026.