Scientists at CERN, during ALPHA-g experiment, have shown that, like everything else experiencing gravity, antimatter falls downwards when dropped.
About Antimatter
- Antimatter is a mysterious substance which was plentiful when the Universe began.
- Everything in our world is made from matter, from tiny particles called atoms. The simplest atom is hydrogen. It’s what the Sun is mostly made from.
- Antimatter is the opposite of matter, from which stars and planets are made. Both were created in equal amounts in the Big Bang which formed our Universe.
- While matter is everywhere, though, antimatter is now fiendishly hard to find.
- A hydrogen atom is made up of a positively charged proton in the middle and negatively charged electron orbiting it. Antihydrogen, which is the antimatter version of hydrogen, used in the Cern experiments.
- It has a negatively charged proton (antiproton) in the middle and a positive version of the electron (positron) orbiting it.
- Most antimatter exists only fleetingly in the Universe, for fractions of seconds. So to carry out experiments, the Cern team needed to make it in a stable and long-lasting form.
