They will release antimatter inside a chamber to see what happens

When we drop any object - that is, something made up of "matter" - what happens is that it "falls" to the ground due to the pull of gravity, right? But what if instead of matter, we drop antimatter ... What happens? Does it go against the ground and rise instead of falling? Odds are that antimatter behaves just like matter itself, but since no one can say with absolute certainty what happens, a team of CERN physicists is planning to experiment to find out.

Ephemeral existence

Antimatter, as you may know, is basically composed of particles identical to those found in ordinary subatomic materials, but with opposite charges. Scientists believe that in nature it is probably created by neutron stars, plasma jets emitted by black holes and even the lightning of storms and even hurricanes, and its existence is beyond ephemeral, since when matter and the antimatter touch, they annihilate each other, releasing energy.

Because of this feature, studying antimatter in the laboratory and under controlled conditions is no easy task! It is quite complicated to create small quantities of this material, and it has an absurd cost to produce, as it were little, is incredibly unstable. To give you an idea, a group of physicists were able to capture and isolate a bit of antimatter in 2010, and it was only possible to study it for a split second.

Things got a lot better in 2011, when the researchers managed to keep the antimatter from disintegrating for an incredible 16 minutes. But while scientists may have had more time to study the material at the time, there are still many mysteries about it unresolved - and now physicists want to find out how antimatter behaves when subjected to gravity.

Experiments

According to Michael Irving of New Atlas, predictions suggest that antimatter should react in the same way as ordinary matter, but evidence must be taken - since physicists say there is a slim chance that it will act. differently than expected.

The team intends to perform 2 different tests, and in both experiments, scientists must first create some antimatter, release it from its electromagnetic “trap” inside a chamber and see what happens ( and us here at Mega if If we were the researchers conducting it there, we would keep our fingers crossed by chance! ).

According to Michael, the difference between the two experiments is how scientists should produce antimatter and how it will be released later. In one of the tests - called ALPHA-g - physicists will employ CERN devices to collect antiprotons and bind them to positrons to produce neutral anti-hydrogen atoms that will then be trapped in such an electromagnetic trap until released into the chamber.

In another test - called GBAR - physicists must collect antiprotons from the collider's deceleration ring and combine them with positrons to produce antihydrogen ions. This material should then be supercooled and neutralized by applying laser beams - which will be used to eliminate an antihydrogen positron.

Complicated? We here at Mega Curioso thought so! Especially considering that scientists have only a few weeks to do all this and experiment with antimatter before particle accelerators are shut down for 2 years for renovations. The good news is that if there is an explosion or something like that, CERN is ready to go to work! So, dear reader, what do you think will happen? Got a guess?

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