“The Most Dangerous Container Ever”: A Substance Will Soon Travel Across Europe for Research Purposes
In an unprecedented scientific move, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are planning to transport a container holding “antimatter” across Europe, according to The Guardian.
The report explains that “in particle physics, antimatter is the opposite of ordinary matter.”
Antimatter is made up of the same components as ordinary matter but with opposite charges. For instance, antimatter protons carry a negative charge, while antimatter electrons (known as positrons) carry a positive charge.
A single gram of antimatter costs trillions of dollars to produce and can only be generated in advanced particle physics laboratories like CERN, using highly sophisticated techniques.
Handling this “antimatter” presents a significant challenge: if it comes into contact with ordinary matter, they annihilate each other, releasing a powerful burst of radiation.
As a result, antimatter is stored in complex devices that rely on electric and magnetic fields, according to the British newspaper.
Professor Stefan Ulmer from CERN stated that transporting antimatter is “extremely difficult” but crucial to better understand these particles, which might provide answers to an age-old mystery in physics.
Antimatter is produced at CERN, specifically in a device called the “Antiproton Decelerator,” which generates antiprotons and positrons.
The research aims to measure the properties of these particles with unprecedented precision to explain why matter dominates the universe.
The studies will be conducted in laboratories outside CERN. The samples will be transported to Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, to enhance measurement accuracy by a factor of 100.
Scientists hope these experiments will help solve the mystery of antimatter’s disappearance, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of the universe.