Australian Science

Tag: antimatter

  • New light on dark matter: space station magnet attracts praise

    New light on dark matter: space station magnet attracts praise

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    by

    Kevin Orrman-Rossiter
    in

    Nobel prizewinner Samuel Ting, early Thursday morning (March 4, 2:00 AEDT), announced the first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) search for dark matter. The findings, published in Physical Review Letters, provide the most compelling direct evidence to date for the existence of this mysterious matter. In short, the AMS results have shown an…

  • Weighty thoughts on antimatter

    Weighty thoughts on antimatter

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    by

    Kevin Orrman-Rossiter
    in ,

    A pulse of particles speeds into the vacuum chamber.  Positrons, 20,000,000 antimatter particles, clumped in a pulse one nanosecond deep.  Like a silent, angry swarm they are targeted into a porous silica target.  The positrons are confined by a magnetic field, increasing their interaction with the silica.  Some attract electrons and synthesize into positronium, a…