Antimatter sticks around
Thursday, September 22, 2011 - 14:01
in Physics & Chemistry
By successfully confining atoms of antihydrogen for an unprecedented 1,000 seconds, an international team of researchers called the ALPHA Collaboration has taken a step towards resolving one of the grand challenges of modern physics: explaining why the Universe is made almost entirely of matter, when matter and antimatter are symmetric, with identical mass, spin and other properties. The achievement is remarkable because antimatter instantly disappears on contact with regular matter such that confining antimatter requires the use of exotic technology.