Dorothy

Attention then shifted to a broader question. If nuclear reactions produce neutrinos, could we use them to peer at the nuclear fireworks inside stars, including the sun? This presented a huge challenge: How can you possibly catch particles shooting from distant stars if these particles can pass through almost anything undetected? The suspicion was that detecting a particle that rarely collides with matter requires a vast amount of matter for it to collide with. Moreover, the matter would have to be shielded from the noise of other forms of radiation. So the answer scientists came up with was to build some of the biggest, deepest, and most exotic experimental traps in scientific history … and then wait.

For instance, Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin, used Naidu’s research to posit that perhaps every little red dot was a black hole star. Wendy Sun, an astronomy research assistant at the University of Hawaii, presented additional evidence based on Naidu’s research. Though his publication date came later, Naidu’s research was the first into this topic, and he is listed as an author on both of those papers.