Antihydrogen Capture Marks CERN Success
For the first time, physicists have captured antimatter — the exact opposite of matter. For eight years a group of international scientists have been creating the simplest form of antimatter in a laboratory. In a paper appearing in the journal Nature last week, those subatomic particle physicists announced they captured antihydrogen, the first element on the antimatter periodic table.
The discovery was made at the European research institute CERN by the ALPHA experiment which is part of the Large Hadron Collider that went online last year. It’s goal is to smash atoms at near the speed of light to re-create the moments just following the Big Bang.
While there are no immediate real-world applications for this antimatter breakthrough — besides the sci-fi hope of creating a new energy source decades in the future — this is a critical scientific milestone. By capturing the antihydrogen for one-fifth of a second scientists will be able to answer one of the most important questions in physics.
“In physics terms one-fifth of a second is a long time.” — Professor Paul Nolan, University of Liverpool
Several good stories to explain the discovery:
BBC: Antimatter Trapped for the First Time
Nature News: Antimatter Held for Questioning
WA Post: Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Antimatter Hunt
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