E-Mail IMAGE: A visualization of the Glashow event recorded by the IceCube detector. Each colored circle shows an IceCube sensor that was triggered by the event; red circles indicate sensors triggered earlier... view more Credit: IceCube Collaboration The idea was so far-fetched it seemed like science fiction: create an observatory out of a one cubic kilometer block of ice in Antarctica to track ghostly particles called neutrinos that pass through the Earth. But speaking to Benedickt Riedel, global computing manager at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, it makes perfect sense. "Constructing a comparable observatory anywhere else would be astronomically expensive," Riedel explained. "Antarctica ice is a great optical material and allows us to sense neutrinos as nowhere else."