Monday, 10 September 2012

Is antimatter present on Earth?

Antimatter is present on Earth and is being naturally created all the time (by Beta decay) as well as being created as product of cosmic ray collisions and in particle accelerators.



However the universe appears to be principally made of matter and so the antimatter thus created is annihilated: and although the production of antimatter through nuclear decay is essentially continuous, it is not of a high volume so the energy created in this way is not significant in the normal course of events. The real question is why is matter so much more abundant than antimatter: which is an open question though various theories have been proposed about why we might live in such a universe.

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