CERN experiment traps antimatter atoms for 1000 seconds
CERN experiment traps antimatter atoms for 1000 seconds. Geneva, 5 June 2011. In a paper published online by today, the ALPHA experiment at CERN 1 reports that it has succeeded in trapping antimatter atoms for over 16 minutes: long enough to begin to study their properties in detail. ALPHA is part of a broad programme at CERN's antiproton decelerator (AD) 2 investigating the mysteries of one of nature's most elusive substances. Today, we live in a universe apparently made entirely of matter, yet at the big bang matter and antimatter would have existed in equal quantities. Nature seems to have a slight preference for matter, which allows our universe and everything in it to exist. One way of investigating nature's preference for matter is to compare hydrogen atoms with their antimatter counterparts, and that's what makes today's result important.
