Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, have created a strange form of matter never before seen on Earth by colliding charged gold atoms at ultra-high speeds in a particle accelerator.
The vast universe is full of mysteries. Illustrative image.
Among the particles created from these high-speed collisions is a strange particle known as anti-tritium atomic hypernucleus. This peculiar particle is not only considered antimatter but also represents a special form of matter.
Its atomic nucleus contains not only protons and neutrons like ordinary atoms but also strange lambda particles that orbit around the protons and neutrons.
American scientists have determined that antimatter existed in the earliest stages of the universe, right after the Big Bang that formed it.
Antimatter is like a mirror image of matter. Each particle has a counterpart, and when they come into contact, they annihilate each other. Although it does not exist on Earth, antimatter is hidden in extremely dense and hot areas of the universe, such as in the centers of stars. It may have also existed when the universe was very young and filled with energy.
This marks the first time antimatter has been created in a laboratory setting. It disappears in less than one billionth of a second, not enough time to collide with ordinary matter. However, nuclear clocks have recorded that the lambda particles have orbited multiple times around the protons and neutrons.
