Another demonstration of the very high level of the research at the Gran Sasso Laboratory.

The Borexino experiment at the underground laboratory of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN, Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics) in Gran Sasso has observed particles produced deeply in the Earth, where the planet's heat is generated. The study will be published on-line at the website arXiv.org.

The Borexino Collaboration (which includes various institutions from Italy, US, Germany, Russia, Poland and France, has observed for the first time geo-neutrinos, which are anti-neutrinos (the smallest and most elusive anti-matter) produced in radioactive decays of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium, thousands of kilometers below the Earth Crust. These decays give a major contribution to the enormous heat contained in our planet, which produces convective movements in the Earth mantle, strictly connected to the volcanic activity, to the plates movements and to the geo-dynamo (which is connected to the Earth magnetic field).

The detection of the geoneutrinos is an important proof that the radioactivity is the main source of the Earth heat, more than 50%, but perhaps 100%; the number of geoneutrino interactions accumulated until now is no yet enough to discriminate with precision between the different hypotheses. Nevertheless it is possible, since now, to disprove the theory that, at the centre of the Earth, nuclear reactors are responsible for the planet heating