The secrets of the origins of light are set to be unlocked by the discovery of an elusive “ghost” particle a mile beneath Antarctica, scientists have announced.

Astronomers have for the first time identified the source of a high-energy neutrino which shot through a solid ice laboratory at the South Pole last year in a “triumph” that promises to revolutionise understanding of fundamental physics.

Neutrinos are virtually massless, subatomic particles which race across the universe, passing unnoticed through planets and stars.

Despite their abundance - hundreds of billions pass through each human every second - they have so far proved impossible to detect because they interact with matter so rarely.

However, the detection of a neutrino on September 22 2017 has since enabled scientists to identify its point of origin using a complex network of ground and space-based radiation telescopes.

The international team traced the particle’s provenance to a flaring galaxy, or “blazar”, with a supermassive black hole at its heart four billion light years away.