Neutrinos have mass

1998/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astrofisika

A team of 120 physicists has conducted extensive research to find the mass of neutrinos in the Japanese Neutron Truck detector. Neutrinos are very small particles that cross the universe at the speed of light; in a second can pass neutrino trillion in our body without meeting a single particle of the body.

So far it has been discussed whether neutrinos had mass or not, but the cosmological models of the universe have been based on the existence of mass to demonstrate, among other things, the existence of dark matter. Thus, cosmologists have taken great peace of mind at this discovery: according to studies, tau neutrinos have a mass of 10-34 grams, that is, one million of the mass of a proton. Despite its small mass, the number of neutrinos is enormous and its influence on the universe, especially in its destiny. If the mass of neutrinos is large, the universe stops expanding and begins to contract.