https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Chemical rockets have taken us to the moon and back, but traveling to the stars demands something more powerful. Space X's Starship can lift extraordinary masses to orbit and send payloads throughout the solar system using its chemical rockets, but it cannot fly to nearby stars at 30% of light speed and land. For missions beyond our local region of space, we need something fundamentally more energetic than chemical combustion, and physics offers, or, in other words, antimatter. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-case-antimatter-manhattan.html General Physics Mon, 01 Dec 2025 09:54:17 EST news683805242 In a breakthrough for antimatter research, the BASE collaboration at CERN has kept an antiproton—the antimatter counterpart of a proton—oscillating smoothly between two different quantum states for almost a minute while trapped. The achievement, reported in a paper published today in the journal Nature, marks the first demonstration of an antimatter quantum bit, or qubit, and paves the way for substantially improved comparisons between the behavior of matter and antimatter. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-antimatter-quantum-bit-paves-comparisons.html Quantum Physics Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:21:37 EDT news672492040 The first-known observations of matter–antimatter asymmetry in a decaying composite subatomic particle that belongs to the baryon class are reported from the LHCb experiment located at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This effect, known as charge–parity (CP) violation, has been theoretically predicted, but hitherto escaped observation in baryons. The experimental verification of this asymmetry violation in baryons, published in Nature this week, is important as baryons make up most of the matter in the observable universe. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-antimatter-mismatch-subatomic-particles-clue.html General Physics Wed, 16 Jul 2025 13:23:50 EDT news671891026 On March 24, at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference taking place in La Thuile, Italy, the LHCb collaboration at CERN reported a new milestone in our understanding of the subtle yet profound differences between matter and antimatter. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-piece-matterantimatter-puzzle-fundamental-asymmetry.html General Physics Wed, 26 Mar 2025 10:13:04 EDT news662202781 Antimatter is a fascinating kind of matter made up of antiparticles, which have a mass equivalent to that of their normal matter counterparts, yet they exhibit an opposite charge and distinct quantum properties. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-alpha-precise-antihydrogen.html General Physics Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:00:01 EST news658403604 Strange "right-handed" neutrinos may be responsible for all the matter in the universe, according to new research. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-ghostlier-neutrino-universe.html Astronomy Thu, 16 Jan 2025 17:08:04 EST news656269681 In the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts. But fast forward 13.8 billion years to the present day, and the universe is made almost entirely of matter, so something must have happened to create this imbalance. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-lhcb-pieces-matterantimatter-puzzle-baryon.html General Physics Mon, 16 Dec 2024 12:30:13 EST news653574601 Getting places in space quickly has been the goal of propulsion research for a long time. Rockets, our most common means of doing so, are great for providing lots of force but are extraordinarily inefficient. Other options like electric propulsion and solar sailing are efficient but offer measly amounts of force, albeit for a long time. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-antimatter-propulsion.html Space Exploration Mon, 16 Dec 2024 10:49:04 EST news653568541 Collisions between heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) create quark–gluon plasma, a hot and dense state of matter that is thought to have filled the universe around one millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Heavy-ion collisions also create suitable conditions for the production of atomic nuclei and exotic hypernuclei, as well as their antimatter counterparts, antinuclei and antihypernuclei. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-alice-evidence-antimatter-partner-hyperhelium.html General Physics Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:56:40 EST news652964190 Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a "flame-throwing guitar" has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-chandra-hubble-tune-flame-guitar.html Astronomy Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:11:02 EST news651341457 Antimatter might sound like something out of science fiction, but at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator (AD), scientists produce and trap antiprotons every day. The BASE experiment can even contain them for more than a year—an impressive feat considering that antimatter and matter annihilate upon contact. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-big-portable-antimatter.html General Physics Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:13:04 EDT news649347181 One of the great challenges of modern cosmology is to reveal the nature of dark matter. We know it exists (it constitutes more than 85% of the matter in the universe), but we have never seen it directly and still do not know what it is. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-antimatter-cosmic-rays-reopen-wimps.html Astronomy Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:02 EDT news647165522 Nuclear fission reactors act as a key power source for many parts of the world and worldwide power capacity is expected to nearly double by 2050. One issue, however, is the difficulty of discerning whether a nuclear reactor is being used to also create material for nuclear weapons. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-antimatter-nuclear-byproducts-fission-reactors.html General Physics Tue, 01 Oct 2024 11:00:02 EDT news646991270 Most atoms are made from positively charged protons, neutral neutrons and negatively charged electrons. Positronium is an exotic atom composed of a single negative electron and a positively charged antimatter positron. It is naturally very short-lived, but researchers including those from the University of Tokyo successfully cooled and slowed down samples of positronium using carefully tuned lasers. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-scientists-cool-positronium-absolute-antimatter.html General Physics Wed, 11 Sep 2024 11:00:01 EDT news645264542 In experiments at the Brookhaven National Lab in the US, an international team of physicists has detected the heaviest "anti-nuclei" ever seen. The tiny, short-lived objects are composed of exotic antimatter particles. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-heaviest-antimatter-fine-tune-dark.html General Physics Sun, 25 Aug 2024 11:30:02 EDT news643552069 Scientists studying the tracks of particles streaming from six billion collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—an "atom smasher" that recreates the conditions of the early universe—have discovered a new kind of antimatter nucleus, the heaviest ever detected. Composed of four antimatter particles—an antiproton, two antineutrons, and one antihyperon—these exotic antinuclei are known as antihyperhydrogen-4. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-heaviest-exotic-antimatter-nucleus.html General Physics Wed, 21 Aug 2024 11:00:02 EDT news643447741 Why does the universe contain matter and (virtually) no antimatter? The BASE international research collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, headed by Professor Dr. Stefan Ulmer from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), has achieved an experimental breakthrough in this context. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-cold-antimatter-quantum-state-precision.html Quantum Physics Fri, 02 Aug 2024 09:56:23 EDT news641811378 Once a particle of matter, always a particle of matter. Or not. Thanks to a quirk of quantum physics, four known particles made up of two different quarks—such as the electrically neutral D meson composed of a charm quark and an up antiquark—can spontaneously oscillate into their antimatter partners and vice versa. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-asymmetry-antimatter.html General Physics Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:03:02 EDT news632145781 A substance called antimatter is at the heart of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. We know that every particle has an antimatter companion that is virtually identical to itself, but with the opposite charge. When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they annihilate each other—disappearing in a burst of light. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-antimatter-gravity-affects-universe.html General Physics Sun, 01 Oct 2023 13:10:01 EDT news615125137 For the first time, scientists have observed antimatter particles—the mysterious twins of the visible matter all around us—falling downwards due to the effect of gravity, Europe's physics lab CERN announced on Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-mysterious-antimatter-falling.html General Physics Sat, 30 Sep 2023 14:10:01 EDT news615042433 For those still holding out hope that antimatter levitates rather than falls in a gravitational field, like normal matter, the results of a new experiment are a dose of cold reality. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-antimatter-embraces-earth-falling-downward.html General Physics Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:00:01 EDT news615029401 When theoretical physicists like myself say that we're studying why the universe exists, we sound like philosophers. But new data collected by researchers using Japan's Subaru telescope has revealed insights into that very question. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-helium-distant-galaxies-physicists-insight.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Jul 2023 12:10:01 EDT news609677162 In the first moments of our universe, countless numbers of protons, neutrons and electrons formed alongside their antimatter counterparts. As the universe expanded and cooled, almost all these matter and antimatter particles met and annihilated each other, leaving only photons, or flashes of light, in their wake. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-roundness-electrons-clues.html General Physics Thu, 06 Jul 2023 15:07:03 EDT news607874821 Early in its history, shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with equal amounts of matter and "antimatter"—particles that are matter counterparts but with opposite charge. But then, as space expanded, the universe cooled. Today's universe is full of galaxies and stars that are made of matter. Where did the antimatter go, and how did matter come to dominate the universe? This cosmic origin of matter continues to puzzle scientists. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-unraveling-mystery-cosmic.html General Physics Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:22:01 EDT news581876516 At CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), studies of rare processes allow scientists to infer the presence of heavy particles, including undiscovered particles, that cannot be directly produced. Such particles are widely anticipated to exist beyond the Standard Model, and could help explain some of the enigmas of the universe, such as the existence of dark matter, the masses of neutrinos (elusive particles originally thought to be massless) and the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-rare-particle-high-precision.html Quantum Physics Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:15:27 EDT news577037724 The final piece of an all-new detector has completed the first leg of its journey towards unlocking some of the most enduring mysteries of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-device-ultimate-existential.html General Physics Mon, 02 May 2022 10:00:01 EDT news570702197 A hybrid matter—an antimatter helium atom containing an antiproton, the proton's antimatter equivalent in place of an electron, has an unexpected response to laser light when immersed in superfluid helium, reports the ASACUSA collaboration at CERN. The result, described in a paper published today in the journal Nature, may open doors to several lines of research. https://phys.org/news/2022-03-behavior-hybrid-antimatter-atoms-superfluid.html General Physics Thu, 17 Mar 2022 07:32:54 EDT news566721164 As part of an experiment to measure—to an extremely precise degree—the charge-to-mass ratios of protons and antiprotons, the RIKEN-led BASE collaboration at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, has found that, within the uncertainty of the experiment, matter and antimatter respond to gravity in the same way. https://phys.org/news/2022-01-antimatter-equally-gravity.html Quantum Physics Wed, 05 Jan 2022 12:26:35 EST news560607992 What happened at the beginning of the universe, in the very first moments? The truth is, we don't really know because it takes huge amounts of energy and precision to recreate and understand the cosmos on such short timescales in the lab. But scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Switzerland aren't giving up. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-cern-probing-universe-precision.html General Physics Fri, 18 Jun 2021 10:07:41 EDT news543229657 What if some of the antimatter that was thought to have disappeared was hiding in the form of anti-stars? Researchers from the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP—CNRS/CNES/UT3 Paul Sabatier) are using the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope to put the most constraining limits ever on this hypothesis. The results of their work were published on April 20, 2021 in Physical Review D. https://phys.org/news/2021-04-fermi-satellite-constraints-possibility-antimatter.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Apr 2021 08:58:20 EDT news538905497