The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 physics Nobel to Francis Halzen for leading IceCube, the South Pole detector that found high-energy neutrinos from beyond the solar system.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.
Halzen, born in 1944 in Tienen, Belgium, and a professor in Madison, first set out a plan in 1988 to use clear South Pole ice as a neutrino detector. IceCube, a cubic kilometre of instrumented ice, was completed in 2011. The prize is 12 million Swedish kronor.
Neutrinos rarely interact with matter, so a huge volume of ice and light sensors are needed to catch the flashes produced when one hits an atomic nucleus. The academy said researchers later published evidence of neutrinos that must come from far outside the solar system.
Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said Halzen led an international team that built an instrument opening a new kind of astronomy. Halzen told reporters he had been surprised the idea worked as well as it did.
The academy said continuing IceCube detections should add knowledge about the violent settings that produce high-energy neutrinos. Chemistry, literature, peace and economics prizes are still to be announced this week.
People Sentiments Positive
- Halzen told a news conference he had been lucky because few people, including himself, expected the project to work.
- Pearce said Halzen's tenacity paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.