Nobel Prize · Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Nobel Prize in physics goes to the scientist who turned South Pole ice into a telescope for ghostly particles
The File desk · Oct 6, 2026, 10:49 AM UTC
Status
Confirmed. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ own press release, dated Oct. 6, 2026, was on nobelprize.org. The dates page said the prize would be announced Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. in Sweden at the earliest, which is 5:45 a.m. Eastern. The release carries a date, not a clock time.
- Confirmed
Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics alone, for IceCube and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from outside the solar system.
- Confirmed
The prize is 12 million Swedish kronor. The facts page lists the prize share as 1/1.
Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics alone. He saw that the clear ice under the South Pole could catch neutrinos, tiny particles that pass through the Earth, and through us, almost without a trace. He led IceCube, a cubic kilometer of that ice fitted with light sensors. It was finished in 2011. With it, researchers found high-energy neutrinos from far outside the solar system. The Nobel committee says the work opens a new kind of astronomy.
Halzen was born in 1944 in Tienen, Belgium, and earned his doctorate in 1969 from KU Leuven. He is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The facts page lists the prize share as 1/1, a single winner. The prize is 12 million Swedish kronor.
He first laid out the South Pole idea in 1988. When a neutrino hits an atomic nucleus in the ice, it gives off a flash of light that the sensors can track. The academy says the ice works because it is clear, free of many kinds of interference, and geologically stable.
The release says the cosmos holds natural particle accelerators that fire particles with energies up to a million times more than laboratories on Earth can reach. Neutrinos travel straight from those sources. They do not bend, and they do not lose that energy on the way, so they carry information nothing else can.
Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: “His tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.”
What is still unknown or disputed
- The exact clock time of the announcement. The release is dated Oct. 6 and does not print an hour.
- Halzen’s reaction. None was fetched.
- A University of Wisconsin statement or a National Science Foundation statement. None was found. The foundation’s news feed’s newest item is still Sept. 30.
- Who pays for IceCube. The scientific background paper was not fetched, so this story does not say.
Primary sources
Every claim in this story is drawn from the documents below. If a fetch failed, that is recorded on the card.
Source 1
Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2026
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org · October 6, 2026
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 to Francis Halzen University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/press-release/
Source 2
Francis Halzen – Facts – 2026
NobelPrize.org · October 6, 2026
Born: 23 March 1944, Tienen, Belgium. Prize share: 1/1
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/halzen/facts/
Source 3
All Nobel Prizes 2026
NobelPrize.org · October 6, 2026
Lists the Physics 2026 prize for Francis Halzen.
https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2026/
Source 4
Prize announcement dates
NobelPrize.org · October 6, 2026
The prize will be announced on Tuesday, 6 October, 11:45 CEST at the earliest, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/about/prize-announcement-dates/