According to the scientists at CERN -- the same organization responsible for the Large Hadron Collider -- we're about to solve one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics: that although the Big Bang resulted in a huge outpouring of matter and antimatter particles, that antimatter has an opposite charge, that it is still made of normal energy and it therefore obeys the same laws of gravity as matter.
So sure, in fact, that when the space shuttle Endeavour finally blasts off -- hopefully in five days -- it will carry on board a $2 billion antimatter detector known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer just to prove it.
Until then, though, all we know is that it's the matter particles we can see, because our Universe is made up almost entirely of them. So where did all the antimatter go? And most importantly, what kind of an alternate universe is it creating?
Antiparticles are extremely difficult to isolate, trap and study, because they disappear in less than a microsecond when they come back into contact with matter particles.
But last year the team at CERN's Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) managed to lure some antihydrogen into a magnetic trap, whereupon it existed for around some 172 milliseconds. Last week they managed to cool the antiprotons which go into creating the antihydrogen and keep 309 atoms of it safe for more than 17 minutes.
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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/05/cerns-star-trek-moment-close-to-discovering-if-antimatter-obeys-gravity.html
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