Nuclear processes inside the Earth

When physicists installed a nuclear particle detector deep in a mine in the Kolar Gold Fields in India, they hoped to measure particles produced by highly penetrating neutrinos from space. They detected significant showers of these particles, not from above as they had expected, but from the sides and even below! These powerful showers, composed of thousands of different particles, were called "cascade anomalies." Neutrinos are the only known particles with enormous penetrating power. So, do they contribute to the "downward" showers of particles? Average neutrinos don't have the energy to produce these "cascade anomalies."

So where do these neutrinos that permeate our entire planet, even from beneath our feet, come from? Scientists have discovered that the cascading anomalies are too energetic to be caused by average neutrinos from space, leaving us with two possibilities for Earth's structure:

1) What if Earth's mantle is thinner than scientists predict in their solid Earth model? If Earth is hollow, neutrinos could penetrate the planet much more easily and produce the effects scientists have discovered.

2) Could the inner sun itself produce these neutrinos? After all, it is suns that create neutrinos!

Scientists are building downward-facing detectors designed to detect particles originating underground. Many European countries, as well as the United States, are building such detectors, which are located in Mediterranean countries. The largest is currently located deep beneath the ice of Antarctica!