Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A

<jats:title>Neutrino emission from a flaring blazar</jats:title><jats:p>Neutrinos interact only very weakly with matter, but giant detectors have succeeded in detecting small numbers of astrophysical neutrinos. Aside from a diffuse background, only two individual sources have been identified: the Sun and a nearby supernova in 1987. A multiteam collaboration detected a high-energy neutrino event whose arrival direction was consistent with a known blazar—a type of quasar with a relativistic jet oriented directly along our line of sight. The blazar, TXS 0506+056, was found to be undergoing a gamma-ray flare, prompting an extensive multiwavelength campaign. Motivated by this discovery, the IceCube collaboration examined lower-energy neutrinos detected over the previous several years, finding an excess emission at the location of the blazar. Thus, blazars are a source of astrophysical neutrinos.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:italic>Science</jats:italic>, this issue p.<jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6398" page="147" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="361" xlink:href="10.1126/science.aat2890">147</jats:related-article>, p.<jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" related-article-type="in-this-issue" xlink:href="10.1126/science.aat1378">eaat1378</jats:related-article></jats:p>