A new film documentary about faraway physics experiments includes a Yale-affiliated project in the South Pole.
“Messengers,” directed by Jeffrey Zablotny, profiles three underground neutrino detector experiments around the world: SNO+ in Canada, Super-Kamiokande in Japan, and IceCube in Antarctica. The 45-minute movie, which premiered earlier this year at the Visions du Réel film festival in Switzerland, continues to make the rounds at festivals around the world.
The film’s final segment, on IceCube, features Reina Maruyama, a professor of physics and astronomy in Yale’s FAS and a member of the IceCube collaboration.
IceCube, buried below the surface in the Antarctic ice shield, detects an average 275 atmospheric neutrinos daily. A neutrino is a subatomic particle that contains almost no mass and travels through the universe almost completely undisturbed by other matter. Studying neutrinos, physicists say, offers insight into high-energy astrophysical phenomena such as exploding stars and black holes.
This story was featured in the Yale News Insights & Outcomes of December 8, 2025.