The team announced its “ultrahigh energy” neutrino on Wednesday, in a paper published in the journal Nature. The finding brings physicists and astronomers one step closer to understanding just what, exactly, is out there thrusting particles to such unfathomable speeds.

Using an observatory under construction deep beneath the Mediterranean Sea near Sicily, scientists have detected a ghostly subatomic particle called a neutrino boasting record-breaking energy in another important step toward understanding some of the universe's most cataclysmic events.