For those who aren’t familiar with antimatter, it may seem like a natural miracle or some sort of crazy phenomenon. Antimatter is defined as the category of particles composed of “antiparticles” — particles with reversed charge and parity compared to matter. For years, the universe has been described without any knowledge of antimatter, even among the leading physicists and scientists. However, 2024 has been a landmark year for antimatter with numerous important discoveries.
Antimatter, to be completely honest, does seem like something made up out of a sci-fi or superhero film. With the general definition of the material: it being the twin of all of the subatomic particles in our universe, it sounds fictional. For example, the protons and neutrons that make up atoms have mysterious doubles such as antiprotons and antineutrons.
The main question that’s asked at this point is whether antimatter really exists, which has been the focal point of scientists’ research for decades. More recently, though, many scientists have used laboratory equipment to create a ton of antiparticles. Most notably, a particle accelerator is used, where electrons are accelerated to insane speeds, fired at a target, and used to convert some of their energy into mass and create antimatter.
So is everything we previously knew about the universe false? Is everything really not made up of matter? Well, here is where the knowledge of antimatter becomes hazy. As seen in experiments, when matter and antimatter meet, they destroy each other, which is oddly sci-fi-like. Regardless, if the Big Bang created the same amount of antimatter as matter, nothing would exist. As a result, there must have been more matter created than antimatter, an idea that physicists call asymmetry. Thus, since there’s more matter than antimatter, we can’t see antimatter.
2024 was a calendar year for many discoveries about antimatter.
- A new particle named Antihyper Hydrogen (another particle with a fictional-sounding name) was created, the heaviest antimatter particle to date!
- This particle may provide some insight into why there was an imbalance between matter and antimatter during the Big Bang.
- Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are conducting experiments about the roles of antiparticles and particles.
- One theory states that if all matter was replaced by antimatter, and their charges are flipped, nothing would change
- In this way, these scientists are also seeking to explain if there are any subtle differences between antimatter and matter, which may explain why there’s more matter than antimatter.
Why does all of this matter?
- Antimatter is more than just a speculation about our universe. The experiments conducted this year and in years past have shown that many theories that scientists have created have merit!
- Antimatter has potential implications for future life:
- As a source of energy, nonrenewable energy sources detriment the environment and are being used up rapidly.
- As applications in medicine — for example, positrons (the antimatter equivalent of an electron) is already being used in PET scans to detect cancer.
- These discoveries in 2024 bring us closer to understanding this entirely new world; importantly, why it’s hidden and separate from matter, and how fundamental antimatter truly is to our world.
