When the universe was formed 13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang produced particles of matter and antimatter in mirror pairs. This is what official physics states.
But everything we see today in the universe, from the smallest insect on Earth to the largest star, is made up of particles of matter whose antimatter counterparts cannot be found anywhere. This week, scientists in a vast underground European laboratory came a step closer to solving this mystery by creating an antimatter particle – an ‘antihydrogen’ atom.
– We wanted to determine whether hydrogen in matter and antihydrogen in antimatter behave the same, said Jeffrey Hangst from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
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The discovery of even the slightest difference that could explain the apparent disparity between matter and antimatter would shake the Standard Model of physics, the official theory about the fundamental particles that make up the universe. However, somewhat disappointingly, the latest and “most precise test to date” found no differences in the behavior of hydrogen and antihydrogen atoms. Not yet.
– For now, they look the same, said Hangst.
The Standard Model, which explains the origin and behavior of the visible universe, has no explanation for the disappearance of antimatter. Science assumes that the Big Bang produced particles of matter and antimatter in pairs of equal mass but opposite electric charge.
Dark Energy
The problem is that when particles meet, they annihilate each other, leaving nothing behind but pure energy, a principle that powers imaginary spaceships in “Star Trek.”
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Physicists believe that matter and antimatter touched and imploded shortly after the Big Bang, meaning that today’s universe should contain nothing but remnants of energy. However, scientists say that matter, or everything we can touch and see, makes up only 4.9 percent of the universe.
Dark matter, the mysterious ingredient of the universe that cannot be seen and whose existence has only been indirectly proven by its gravitational effects on other objects, makes up 26.8 percent of the universe. Dark energy, another invisible component through which the universe expands, fills the remaining 68.3 percent.
Antimatter Could Be Found in Antigalaxies
Antimatter, therefore, does not actually exist, except in rare and short-lived particles created by high-energy events such as cosmic radiation. Or if it is created at CERN. Some theoretical physicists believe that the missing antimatter may be found in unknown parts of the universe, in antigalaxies composed of anti-stars and anti-planets.
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At CERN, they are trying to unravel the mystery using the simplest atom of matter – hydrogen, which consists of one electron and one proton. There, they create antihydrogen atoms and hold them in a magnetic trap to prevent them from coming into contact with matter and annihilating each other.
They then study the reactions of the atoms to laser light. Atoms of different types of matter absorb different frequencies of light, and according to current theory, hydrogen and antihydrogen should absorb the same type. So far, this is indeed the case.
However, scientists hope that differences will emerge as the experiment is further refined and made more precise.
