IceCube: A decade in review On May 13, 2011, the U.S. National Science Foundation's IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory took its first set of data --known as a physics run -- as a fully configured facility. Since then, the facility has yielded groundbreaking results! In 2012, IceCube detected the highest energy neutrinos ever observed at that time. During its 10 years of operation, scientific breakthroughs enabled by IceCube have been published in over 150 papers in scientific journals. In celebration of the facility’s 10th anniversary, learn more about IceCube through images. May 13, 2021 Credit: AMANDA Collaboration It took seven years to construct the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, designed to search for nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos. However, planning began much earlier. In 1990, the proof of principle for IceCube, called AMANDA, was field-tested in Greenland. Fourteen years later, construction at the South Pole was ready to begin.