CERN scientists break anti-matter record

The electrodes for the ALPHA Penning trap. This is the trap used to combine or mix positrons and antiprotons to make anti-hydrogen. (Niels Madsen ALPHA/Swansea.)

At the moment of the Big Bang scientists believe that equal amounts of matter and anti-matter were created.

Anti-matter is a “mirror image” of normal matter, having an opposite electric charge.

When matter and anti-matter come together, they destroy each other in an enormous outburst of energy.

The universe is made up of matter. Scientists do not know what happened to the original anti-matter.

What has happened to the anti-matter is one of the great, unsolved mysteries. We simply don’t know. Professor Jeffrey Hangst

This is the first time anti-matter has been created and stored in a stable long-lasting state. It is hoped the breakthrough could help us to understand the composition of the universe.

Professor Jeffrey Hangst, lead author of the research, told Channel 4 News his team wants to know why “the universe took a left turn”.

He said: “There should have been equal amounts of matter and anti-matter at the Big Bang. What has happened to the anti-matter is one of the great, unsolved mysteries. We simply don’t know.

“The laws of physics say it’s just as possible to have an anti-matter universe … nobody knows why the universe took a left turn and chose matter.”

Professor Hangst said that scientists had overlooked something: “Half of the universe has gone missing, so some kind of rethink is apparently on the agenda.”

Read more: Space travel - what next for the final frontier?

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