Borexino team receives prestigious Cocconi award

Inside the Borexino detector. More than 1000 meters of rock above the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso shields the experiment against a large part of the cosmic radiation, so that neutrinos from the sun can be measured here. Image: Borexino Collaboration Renowned award for experimental confirmation of nuclear fusions in the sun - For their groundbreaking observations of solar neutrinos, with which the fusion reactions inside the sun could be experimentally proofed for the first time, the team of the Borexino collaboration receives the prestigious Giuseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize. Every two years, the European Physical Society awards it to an outstanding discovery in astro-particle physics and cosmology of the past 15 years. In 2018, after more than ten years of observing solar neutrinos, the Borexino experiment presented an overall study of the pp chain, the most important fusion process in the sun. The study confirmed for the first time the theoretical ideas about the energy production in our sun. Recently, after years of efforts, the Borexino collaboration was also able to observe the second fusion process, the CNO cycle.