Antimatter
As Douglas Adams said, “Space is Big. Really Big." And that’s the major obstacle for travelling between the stars. But a new proposal published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society promises to shrink that distance just a bit. Physics and technology consultant Richard Obousy claims that an antimatter starship that creates its own fuel from the vacuum of space itself would be capable of making a return journey to the nearest star and back within one lifetime. Read More
Antimatter propulsion is the Holy Grail of spaceflight. When matter and antimatter react, the energy produced is several billion times larger than the thermomechanical energy resulting from burning a kilogram of a hydrocarbon fuel. Now a high school student has developed a new magnetic exhaust nozzle that would double the velocity of an antimatter-powered rocket. Read More
Researchers involved in the ALPHA experiment at Switzerland’s CERN complex announced yesterday (June 5) that they have succeeded in using the facility's antiproton decelerator to trap antimatter atoms for 1,000 seconds – or just over 16 minutes. This was reportedly enough time to begin studying their properties in detail, which has been the goal of ALPHA since the project began in 2005. Read More
Antimatter trapped and studied for first time
An international collaboration of 15 research institutions have produced and trapped antimatter atoms for the first time ever. The feat was part of the ALPHA experiment, which is being conducted at Switzerland’s CERN particle physics laboratory. It could be a step towards answering one the biggest cosmological questions of all time. Read More
