Trillions of neutrinos are produced in our Sun through its nuclear reactions. These particles stream out at nearly the speed of light, and pass right through any matter they encounter. In fact, there are billions of them passing through your body right now. Learn how this elusive particle was first theorized and finally discovered.

<strong><a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/AstroCast-070416.mp3">Episode 32: The Search for Neutrinos (13.8 MB) </a></strong><br />&nbsp;<br />

Read the full blog entry

Great episode. I just might now begin to understand what the Quark is going on in an atom. Well done.

Very nice... I especially liked the basics on what quarks are and how we go from protons to neutrons.

One question that lingers is that protons carry a positive charge and neutrons have, well a "neutral" charge. As I understand, the neutrinos do not carry a positive charge (or they'd be easier to detect, right?).

So what happens to the positive charge from the proton? Or is the charge simply a property of the up/down quark combination and does not exist in and of itself?

When the two protons fuse, one is transformed to a neutron via the weak nuclear force. This reaction also release a positron and an electron neutrino. The positron carries away the positive charge of one of the protons.

Have a look at the Proton-Proton Chain Reaction for a full description.

__________________
"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the nonexistent." -- Elbert Hubbard

I agree, it's the first time I even started to understand how those particles might work!

Funny thing:
- my grandfather would have suspended physics if he'd said an atom can be divided into smaller parts
- my father would have suspended for that same statement about a proton

Question:
Are there any signs yet that maybe a quark (or electron, or neutrino) might consist of anything even smaller?
Or have we really reached the smallest level there is?

Great show, Pamela and Fraser! I've finally been catching up on it and I've been really impressed at how accessible all your content is. One slight criticism, though; I'm pretty sure neutrinos were first postulated strictly as a means of momentum and energy conservation, not as an explanation of how quarks change flavor. You yourself said that Wolfgang Pauli first proposed their existence in 1930. Murray Gell-Mann, the founding father of quark theory, was only a baby at the time, having been born in late 1929. I know Gell-Mann was a child prodigy, but even he wasn't that precocious ;-)

OK, that was much more verbose than I had intended, but keep up the great work. It's always fun to hear what you've cooked up for your podcasts.