While the team at Cern - which is home to the Large Hadron Collider - toils with the difficulties of trapping a few antimatter particles for a mere 17 minutes, it seems there is a relatively abundant natural source of the elusive anti-material hanging around the earth's magnetic field which might one day be used to fuel spacecraft. A team of scientists studying data from the Pamela satellite (full name: Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics) have discovered antimatter particles trapped by the earth's magnetosphere at an altitude of several hundred kilometres. Their findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The antimatter particles are created when cosmic rays slam into molecules in the earth's atmosphere. Most of the 'antiprotons' produced are obliterated when they come into contact with normal matter, but some survive - and a few of these are trapped.
The University of Bari's Alessandro Bruno, a co-author of the letter, told the BBC: "Trapped antiprotons can be lost in the interactions with atmospheric constituents, especially at low altitudes where the annihilation becomes the main loss mechanism.
"Above altitudes of several hundred kilometres, the loss rate is significantly lower, allowing a large supply of antiprotons to be produced."
Some of the antiprotons that survive are trapped in a magnetically weak region of the Van Allen radiation belt called the South Atlantic Anomaly (above). The work, if correct, would confirm theories that antimatter exists in pockets in what Dr Bruno describes as "the most abundant source of antiprotons near the earth".
More excitingly for those of a less scientific bent, is the possibility raised by Dr Bruno that the antimatter could be used one day as a fuel in spacecraft, presumably bringing Nasa's 100-year starship a tiny step closer to reality. (thefirstpost.co.uk)
