Francis Halzen realised that South Pole ice could be used to detect neutrinos, or 'ghost particles', which rarely interact with matter as they pass through the Earth and our bodies. (EPA Images pic)

STOCKHOLM: Belgian-American particle physicist Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work creating an observatory to detect some of the universe's most elusive particles - high-energy neutrinos - and trying to establish how they are made.

Halzen, 82, realised that ice at the South Pole could be used to track neutrinos, sometimes known as "ghost particles" for the way they pass through the Earth and our bodies without a trace, and only interact with matter extremely rarely.

"The messengers bring information from the cosmos," Eva Olsson, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a press conference. "They open the door to distant galaxies and tell us about the processes of exploding stars."