Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Scientists are melting holes in the bottom of the world. Not for fun, not for geothermal energy, and not because they ran out of Antarctic real estate - but because it turns out the South Pole is an excellent place to build an astronomical observatory, provided you're willing to drill nearly 100 holes into it first.

Astronomers with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory lowered a long string knotted with basketball-sized light detectors into each vertical lake. The water in each hole soon refreezes, which is the Antarctic's way of saying "you're welcome" - and also its way of sealing your expensive equipment in solid ice forever, which is apparently the plan all along.

The detectors attached to the strings are sensitive to blue light emitted in the surrounding clear ice. That light results from fast-moving secondary particles liberated when high-energy neutrinos emitted by powerful processes out in the universe collide with ice molecules - because nothing says "cutting-edge astrophysics" like using a cubic kilometer of frozen water as a giant cosmic bug zapper.

IceCube has now detected many illuminating neutrinos, which is a polite way of saying the experiment works, the ice is doing its job, and the neutrinos - notoriously antisocial particles that pass through literally everything - have finally been caught in the act.

Pictured in 2010, one of the last of IceCube's detector strings is lowered into the freezing abyss, making IceCube the largest neutrino detector ever created. It is, in the grand tradition of big science, a monument to the human conviction that if you just build something large enough in a sufficiently inhospitable location, the universe will eventually have no choice but to reveal its secrets.

In recognition of unprecedented discoveries, it was announced earlier this week that a founding leader of the IceCube Collaboration will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. So: melt holes, freeze water, wait patiently, win Nobel. Somewhere, a grant reviewer is quietly weeping with validation.

Tomorrow's picture: Moons Planet