PHYSICS
What are neutrinos?
©; Getty;
Neutrinos are one of the most abundant fundamental particles in the universe. They come in three flavours: electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino. A neutrino is similar to an electron but has no electrical charge and a tiny mass. Neutrinos aren’t part of an atom – in other words, matter, unlike protons, neutrons and electrons. Like other constituents of the Standard Model of particle physics, they’re assumed to be point-like objects: they aren't made of any smaller pieces that we know of. According to the Standard Model, there exist 12 fundamental particles, namely three families of leptons – electron, muon and tau and corresponding neutrinos – up and down quarks and their antimatter versions. The most abundant are neutrinos, created in the universe's first second after the Big Bang. Theory predicts that there are 340 Big Bang neutrinos in every cubic centimetre everywhere in the universe. Due to very low energy, they haven’t been experimentally confirmed yet. They form a cosmic neutrino background with a very low temperature of about -271 degrees Celsius (-455.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Nowadays, neutrinos remain a mystery for physicists.