Mysterious radio pulses detected high above Antarctica may be evidence of an exotic new particle, scientists say.

A cosmic particle detector has spotted a burst of strange radio signals from the ice of Antarctica that currently defy explanation. The results could hint at the existence of new particles, or interactions between particles currently unknown to physics, scientists say.

The mystery radio pulses were picked up about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above Earth by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment. ANITA is a series of instruments that float over Antarctica, carried by balloons with the aim of detecting ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos and other cosmic rays as they pelt Earth from space.

ANITA usually picks up signals when they are reflected off the ice of Antarctica, but these pulses were different, coming from below the horizon at an orientation that currently can't be explained by particle physics.

The radio waves detected by ANITA were oriented at very steep angles, 30 degrees below the surface of the ice.

This means that the signal had to pass through thousands of miles of rock before reaching ANITA. This should have led to interactions that left the radio pulses too faint to be detectable, but clearly that didn't happen here.

Source: www.space.com

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