Landing on the Sun
There’s an old joke about [insert your favorite group to be japed at here] planning to send a rocket to the sun. “Won’t the astronauts burn up?” is the standard question, to which the reply is, “No, because we plan to land the rocket at night!”
Strangely, there is a serious real-life analogue that exists: a photograph taken of the sun… at night. By Japanese scientists, no less. [See photo below.] At least, partly at night. It was accomplished by capturing the image through the Earth, or at least partly so–half of the image was collected at night, as it was taken over 503.8 days and nights, with neutrinos. Since neutrinos can travel through the Earth rather easily, collecting them from the sun at night is not a hindrance.
Hat tip again to Cosmic Variance.
Why taken over 500 days?
Because neutrinos are extremely hard to capture (they pass straight through the Earth, after all–they’re not easy to stop). It’s like taking a long-exposure photograph in extremely low light. I’m sure your father could explain it to you better–doesn’t he work in that general field?