Research
Antimatter usually vanishes the exact second it touches regular matter but researchers successfully trapped one piece for months
Earth.com · By Eric Ralls ·
The Brief
- A single positron, a piece of antimatter, has been held in a laboratory in Illinois for months.
- Antimatter normally annihilates the moment it contacts ordinary matter.
- Physicists cooled the trapped positron to a very low temperature, as reported by Earth.com.
Why it matters
Keeping a single antiparticle stable for months shows that antimatter can be isolated and studied directly in the lab, which bears on precision tests of matter-antimatter symmetry.
Who’s affected
- physicists studying antimatter and particle physics
- #antimatter
- #positron
- #particle-physics
- #atomic-trapping
- #experimental-physics
Antimatter has a reputation, mostly from science fiction, for disappearing the instant it touches ordinary matter. Even so, a single particle of it, a positron, has been held in a laboratory in Illinois for months. Physicists cooled it to about half a degree Fahrenheit (0.3°C)…