The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics on 6 October to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Belgian-American physicist was honoured for his decisive role in building the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from cosmic sources. IceCube watches a cubic kilometre of ice at the South Pole with more than 5,000 light sensors, an idea Halzen first put forward in 1988. In 2013 it caught the first high-energy neutrinos from beyond the Solar System, and in 2023 it produced the first picture of the Milky Way made with neutrinos. The prize of 12 million Swedish kronor will be handed over in Stockholm on 10 December. Our take: a Nobel for a telescope buried in ice that looks at the sky through the Earth — neutrino astronomy has come of age.
1 km³of Antarctic ice: IceCube
2013first cosmic neutrinos