In the world of Star Trek, the starship Enterprise zips through space using a warp drive that harnesses antimatter. Suffice it to say, such technology remains in the realm of science fiction.
Antimatter is the enigmatic twin of ordinary matter, possessing the same mass but with an opposite electrical charge. Almost all subatomic particles, such as electrons and protons, have an antimatter counterpart. While electrons are negatively charged, antielectrons, also called positrons, are positively charged. Likewise, while protons are positively charged, antiprotons are negatively charged.
"On Earth, most antimatter that occurs naturally is produced from cosmic rays - energetic particles from space - that collide with atoms in the air and create antimatter-matter pairs," said physicist Jonathan Wurtele of the University of California, Berkeley, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature.
"This result was predicted by theory, and indirect experiments that relied on subtle phenomena. But no group had ever done a direct experiment in which antimatter was simply dropped to see which way it would fall," UC Berkeley physicist and study co-author Joel Fajans said. "I think this is a testament to the strength of general relativity and its equivalence principles," Bertsche added.
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