Physicists have produced a stream of antihydrogen atoms for the first time. Members of the Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons experiment at CERN, Europe's high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland, reported on 21 January detecting 80 of the antiatoms 2.7 metres from their source (N. Kuroda et al. Nature Commun. 5, 3089; 2014). The researchers hope that by isolating the antiatoms from the strong magnetic fields used to create and trap the particles, they can characterize small differences between antihydrogen and hydrogen. These differences could help to explain why the Universe contains more matter than antimatter.
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