CERN succeeds in taking antimatter on a test drive

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have successfully completed a world-first experiment: transporting antimatter, one of the fundamental particles believed to have contributed to the creation of the universe, by truck.

On Tuesday, a team moved 92 antiprotons around their Geneva campus in a high-stakes 30-minute journey.

Because antimatter annihilates instantly upon contact with regular matter, the particles were suspended in a vacuum (Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons style) inside a 1,000-kilogram cryogenic box called the “transportable antiproton trap.”

The success is a critical stepping stone toward delivering antimatter to external laboratories, such as Heinrich Heine University in Germany, by 2029. 

Researchers seek to study antimatter away from CERN because the facility’s massive particle accelerators create magnetic interference that skews delicate measurements.

Scientists hope to observe subtle differences between matter and antimatter that could explain why the universe exists as it does today.