Neutrinos are, as we've said, a type of lepton. Since they have no electrical or strong charge they almost never interact with any other particles. Most neutrinos pass right through the earth without ever interacting with a single atom of it.

Neutrinos are produced in a variety of interactions, especially in particle decays. In fact, it was through a careful study of radioactive decays that physicists hypothesized the neutrino's existence.

For example: (1) In a radioactive nucleus, a neutron at rest (zero momentum) decays, releasing a proton and an electron. (2) Because of the law of conservation of momentum, the resulting products of the decay must have a total momentum of zero, which the observed proton and electron clearly do not. (Furthermore, if there are only two decay products, they must come out back-to-back.) (3) Therefore, we need to infer the presence of another particle with appropriate momentum to balance the event. (4) We hypothesize that an antineutrino was released; experiments have confirmed that this is indeed what happens.

Because neutrinos were produced in great abundance in the early universe and rarely interact with matter, there are a lot of them in the Universe. Their tiny mass but huge numbers may contribute to total mass of the universe and affect its expansion.