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Science

NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon 104

Posted by Hemos from the up-up-and-away dept.
Doofus writes " It almost sounds like a science-fiction movie: NASA launched a 60-story-high balloon to the upper fringes of Earth's atmosphere to collect precious particles of some of the rarest stuff in the Universe -- antimatter -- and, just possibly, evidence that entire anti-galaxies exist. The press release is online. " Check out more coverage as well.
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NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon

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  • Would those be ahpla particles?:)

    Would anti-beta particles be ateb particles?

    :) :)

  • I'm not sure if/how the existence of anti-matter galaxies would effect the Big Bang theory.

    It would be very hard to explain in standard cosmology. The universe was very homogenous--e.g., well mixed -- in its early existance (and we know this pretty confidently because we can take a look at the cosmic microwave background, which is a constant background with fluctuations of only a hundredth of a percent.)

    It's hard to reconcile the existance of large chunks of antimatter now with a very well-mixed universe earlier; the antimatter would have annhillated.

  • Sorry for propogating a worthless thread, BUT:

    (Proud contributor to the teach-AN-admin-grammar foundation)

    He didn't say "teach-a-admin", he said "teach-a-slashdot-admin" (exept he used "/." instead of "slashdot".)

    The moral? Look before you flame. Or, preferably, don't flame at all.

  • >According to the laws of physics, there should be an equal amount of anti-matter as there is matter.

    Are you sure about this? The last I heard, it was possible that there were some slight asymmetries in the laws of physics which could favour one type of matter over the other. IIRC, it was only a 1-part-per-billion type of effect that would be necessary to make our entire universe be "regular" matter.

    As the article said, _if_ this experiment finds anti-helium, it could overturn some of these theories which predict only one variety of matter.

    >Also, speaking in theory, shouldn't there be neutral matter?

    "Anti"-matter does not just mean electric charge; it is really "-1" of a particle. By this reasoning, a "neutral electron" would be a region of space which contained no electrons or antielectrons. Not a very useful concept. Some scientists have speculated about "exotic" matter with a negative mass, and some theories for wormholes require this sort of matter, but it's never been observed.
  • i agree...but does that also mean that there could exist anti-people? would there be people in this alternate galaxy that negate us? would their ideals be opposites of ours? then adolf hitler and charles manson and bill gates *grin* would all be saints and mother teresa some sort of demon...
    or could the fact that the earth exists here negate itself in an alternate galaxy and not exist there?
  • superman and bizzaro...thats exactly what i was thinking...

    perhaps this "anti" universe is in fact hell..............*gulp*
  • If there are, indeed, entire galaxies composed of anti-matter, than its not exact a "rare" substance, now is it? Its just a little difficult to come by round these parts. :)

    Similarly, the vast majority of matter (and/or anti-matter) in the universe is in a plasma state. Being terrestrial, however, we don't bump into plasma very often.

    Scientists have been working on this sort of thing for a while. Its still very interesting. I'm not sure if/how the existence of anti-matter galaxies would effect the Big Bang theory. I am but a humble Engineer. Do we have any Physicists in the room?

    --Lenny
  • Stick with Titties. Trust me.

  • So there could concievably be another planet that has intelligent life debating on whether or not matter exists?

    :-)
  • I though the whole deal with anti-matter was that if it came into contact with matter, the two would annihilate each other and release Mc^2 energy? Doesn't sound like such a good idea to go trying to collect something like that, what would you put it in?
  • By Robert L. Forward, (Any sufficiently advanced technology is) Indisinguishable From Magic.

    Cheers,
    Ben Tilly
  • It would make sense that Antimatter Galaxies may exist, simply because we have found antimatter. Think about it. As far as that anti-proton is concerned, it's just a proton (With a Negative charge), and everything it encounters is opposite of itself. So, that would mean, to something somewhere, our universe as we know it, is composed of antimatter (Or, matter which is exactly the opposite of what they refer to as matter.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Antimatter is similar in theory to the magnetic + and -.

    On one side of the spectrum, you have positive matter. Positive matter makes up everything you know to exist. (Keep in mind that positive matter can have a negative charge.)

    Now, it's been theorized that for every positive type of matter, there must be an exact opposite for each type. Helium to Anti-helium (which has yet to be proven), protons to anti-protons, etc.

    Antimatter would be easier to study, but unfortunately, when Matter and Antimatter collide, they annihilate each other producing massive amounts of energy. So if you try to put your pet anti-proton in a mayonaise jar, it won't work. :)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Well, if you ever meet an Anti-person, don't run up and hug them.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • So if I put on my antimatter underwear I could go back in time? Or would it just make gamma stuff and keep me from reproducing?

    Hrmmm...I dont wanna be the first to try it.

    Also, if theres another me made out of antimatter, he already knows how im going to die, because time gos backwards.. so couldnt I just call him and ask him how the rest of my life is going to work out... and maybe tonights lotto numbers...

    *sigh* someone give me a job in a think tank, I cant handle this real world stuff...

  • This sounds a little misleading - the press release makes it sound like there's antimatter just out there waiting to be collected - while only anti-protons have actually been found. The mission is to LOOK FOR anti-helium (and why is H skipped?) - so far it's like building an alien landing pad in your corn field - it don't mean they actually exist.

    Chuck
  • If a "shirt button" amount of anti-matter can launch the space shuttle, then I sure hope this 60 story, 39 million cubic foot balloon doesn't crash...
  • ... how you nake "news" out of randomscientific experiment. - Maybe you just put a link to xxx.lanl.gov [slashdot.org] instead?
    Duh.

  • ouups (Score:1)

    by Axe ( 11122 )
    forgot http:// .. in the link?

  • ouups (Score:1)

    by Axe ( 11122 )

    Whats wrong with the damn thing - it eats brackets...

    forgot http:// .. in the link? [lanl.gov]
  • In the spirit of a previous /. posting [slashdot.org], I did a quick check:
    • Matter: 2,793,760
    • Antimatter: 10076

    Matter wins by quite a large margin.

    :-)
  • If you pick up the book Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters or Gleik's Chaos, Making a New Science (I forget which), you'll see the exact same thing mentioned.
  • There's actually a rumor floating around that this is being done in conjunction with Italy's version of NASA. The word is that there is an oversupply (hypersupply perhaps) of food in Italy (kinda like the reason we pay some farmers to avoid certain crops). This rush of food into the boot country has created such an uproar in Italy that they have got their space program involved. They're sending a second 30-story high balloon right behind NASA's in search of anti-pasta. They're actually hoping they can prove the existence of anti-ravioli and anti-meatballs.

    Did you ever just get into one of those moods...
  • Yeah, we need to learn to contain anti-matter. Then make anti-matter engines to power spacecraft. Chemical rockets are way too slow.
  • Apparently, you don't know your Star Trek technobabble. :)

    A warp core has a matter injector on one end (deuterium isotope) and an anti-matter injector on the other end (anti-hydrogen, same isotope). In the middle is the reaction chamber where the two streams meet. The dilithium crystal is at the point of the reaction, where a stream of plasma is sent out along conduits. It's not the power source, but rather something that directs the reaction.
  • Actually, they've already found anti-pasta. Ever look at the menu in an Italian restaurant Of course they call it "antipasto", but it's just a spelling mistake. :)
  • You just have to make a container out of anti-matter, stupid! :-P
  • >The mission is to LOOK FOR anti-helium (and why is H skipped?) - so far it's like building an alien landing pad in your corn field - it don't mean they actually exist.

    H is skipped because it is conceivable for anti-hydrogen to be produced rather spontaneously. I mean, it's just an anti-electron orbiting an anti-proton.. or maybe it's the other way around.. no wait.. umm..
    &ltsound type=explosion source=head> ARGH!! &lt/sound>

    If anti-helium is found, it's pretty good proof that somewhere, a natural system is operating with anti-particles. Like an anti-galaxy. But, it's not REQUIRED that such a system exists, it's just fairly good evidence of it. It is possible to form any damn thing spontaneously, but it's very unlikely for anything higher than anti-hydrogen.


    ---
  • You mean it doesn't matter?
  • Lots of energy.. of course, from a human standpoint, it wouldn't be too much worse than two 'real'-matter galaxies colliding, methinks. :)

  • The problem lies in negative energy, which flows backward in time as opposed to our positive energy and our negative but positive anti-matter which flows forward in time

    I've never heard of negative energy mentioned anywhere in standard physics texts or articles. There really is no evidence for its existence and I don't think anyone in the community really believes of it except for a few theories that say it may be possible.
  • What's wrong? No OSS spell checkers?

    Sure there is; it's called ispell, and it works independently or inside emacs + other editors. For "ballon", it suggests:

    (0) gallon (1) ball-on (2) ball on (3) ballot (4) balloon

    (Proud contributor to the teach-a-/.-admin-to-spell foundation)

  • kind of reminds me of the relationship between Darkwing Duck and his nemisis Negaduck, or maybe between Superman and Bizarro. Only difference is that they could touch each other without disintegrating and releasing enormous amounts of energy.
  • as long as the particle is charged, it could be held in a magnetic field, just as long a it doesn't touch matter. :-)
  • > It would make sense that Antimatter Galaxies
    > may exist, simply because we have found
    > antimatter.

    If I understand the article correctly (IANAP),
    antiprotons are sometimes found as the result
    of (matter) particle collisions. They're looking
    specifically for anti-helium, which is unlikely
    to come about due to the random collision of
    matter.
  • Would it be possible that for a anti-world, the anti-matter would be their matter and that we will be anti-matter?

    Could this be possible? Are we really in the good (matter) universe?

    Just some thoughts; And my bad english doesn't help me explain it...

    ;-)
  • Basically, they look just like you, except they have goatees, because they're evil.
  • You can't "collect" antimatter - at least, not cosmic ray antimatter. It's moving too fast.

    The way they determine if it is antimatter is they use a superconducting magnet to curve the particle's path. By measuring the path (via a variety of methods, I don't know what BESS uses) you can determine whether the particle is positive or negative. Then, you also use other techniques such as time of flight analysis, and Cerenkov light produced to determine the mass and energy of the particle.

    This has actually been going on since the 1960s. This is simply the newest flight of BESS. The important mission for detecting antimatter in cosmic rays is actually AMS, which is to be placed on the Space Station in a few years. Since in space you don't need to worry about atmospheric background, AMS will (hopefully) be able to see antimatter at a lower level than anything else.

    Also: Antihelium that would be detected by this *would* have a charge. The possibility of finding an antihelium atom *not* ionized is *zero*. Not close to zero, just plain zero. (Okay, maybe it's like 10^-100 or something like that. But it's zero.) What they're looking for are anti-alpha particles.
  • Actually, positrons have been found as well, and actually you answered your own question.

    Antiprotons *are* antihydrogen - ionized. The chance of a cosmic ray nucleus not arriving at Earth ionized is virtually nil.

    And the press release *is* misleading. The mission is to *detect*, not to collect, antimatter.
  • The mission is not to collect antimatter. It is to identify it. The entire idea is to try to see if the cosmic ray flux contains complex antinuclei from antimatter galaxies. They won't actually be 'keeping' the antimatter - in actuality, the antimatter won't even stop in the detector, most likely.

  • Re:Antimatter Galaxies? (Score:3)

    by barawn ( 25691 ) on Tuesday August 17, 1999 @05:07AM (#1743146) Homepage
    This is not true. Antiprotons have been found, yes, as have positrons, but they are entirely consistent with having been produced in secondary reactions with the interstellar medium - i.e., a very high energy cosmic ray proton interacts with a stray hydrogen atom and produces a whole bunch of crap, some of which decays into an antiproton, which then propagates to Earth. We have actually found very few antiprotons in cosmic rays. In addition, there are other reasons why antimatter galaxies either do not exist, or are separated from matter galaxies on an immensely huge scale. If antimatter galaxies did exist, we would have regions of intermixing of matter and antimatter which produce gamma rays. We don't see a high diffuse gamma ray flux, therefore, the intermixing regions don't exist. Hence, antimatter galaxies either don't exist, or are separated from normal matter galaxies on an immense scale. Currently, we don't know of any way in which they could have been separated on such a huge scale during the Big Bang, so the current thought is, there are no antimatter galaxies.
  • In today's New York Times (081799) on the front page there is an article about a bizarre interstellar object. Its spectrum matches neither that of a star or a quasar. It looks somewhat like a star spectrum in its fractal dimension, but then it has these odd peaks like a quasar. (Stars have "valleys" instead of peaks, indicating absorbtion of energy.) This makes me think of two things:

    1) Are quasars, with their extremely high outputs of energy, locales of matter/anti-matter interaction?

    2) Is this object an anti-matter *star*? If so, it would be fairly rare, since (presumably) most anti-matter objects would have long since been destroyed. And, indeed, it is rare -- no other objects with this spectrum have been found. If it is, moreover, it appears to have an extremely high red-shift factor, indicating great distance/age.

  • Hmmmm. Antimatter. (Score:3)

    by nicksand ( 28560 ) on Tuesday August 17, 1999 @05:37AM (#1743148)
    I wonder what those people who whine about the nuclear-powered Cassini space craft would say if they understood the implications of collecting antimatter: when antimatter comes into contact with matter it annihilates, creating two gamma rays (gamma rays != good).

    Luckily for the human race, we currently only have to ability to create and maintain minute amounts of the stuff. Someday, however, I'm sure we'll have anti-anti-matter protestors. Won't that be fun?
  • would antimatter provide some kind of scientific relation to another dimension?

    just another strange thought...
  • Check your gnilleps! It's 'naht', not 'neht'!
  • The article description is a little misleading. Anti-matter isn't really that rare at all, in fact its around all the time as quantum effects cause particle / anti-particle pairs to be created and then destroyed all over the place.

    This is in fact how black holes radiate energy, because the anti-particle half of that randomly occuring pairing is sucked in and the particle half goes free.

    Well, maybe its only interesting to me.
  • Or what about that Star Trek where Kirk met his anti-matter self?
    Can't really remember what happened, but I think it ended along the lines of the anti-matter Kirk sacrificing himself to save our universe. (This was not the same episode as the 'evil kirk' who you knew was evil because he wore mascara.)
  • The anti-matter collecting balloon was unable to launch. They couldn't find any dilithium crystals to power it.
  • It's right here on my antishelf in my anticloset in my antibedroom!

    antiDonkPunch
  • Contrarty to popular belif there are other anti-things too. We have the anti-Dog, who humps his own leg. And we have the anti-Al-Gore who invented the iMAC(although he denies it). We have the anti-Lee-Harvey-Ozwald, who actually DID kill JFK. We have the Anti-Cmdr-Taco, a green thumbed garden lover from wyoming. And of coarse we have the anti-Pitr, who speaks with an english accent and uses Front page to make webpages for Microsoft.
  • > One big puzzle in astronomy/cosmology is actually why matter exists at all; why is the universe asymmetric,i.e., made up of matter and not antimatter? tough question.

    The recent discovery of direct-CP violation helps
    explain this. It explains why we live in a matter dominated universe (and of course ultimately how we come to be here to discuss it!)
    See the CERN web pages for some pointers,
    http://www.cern.ch

    One of the fascinating things I got from this article was that the science of high energy physics (my background BTW) was born in cosmic ray experiments on balloons and on high mountain tops.
    It's great to see that balloon experiments still have something to offer.

    HEP/cosmic ray experiments have taken intrepid experimenters (and their computers!) to a lot of
    strange environments - below ground tunnels,
    deep salt mines, the South Pole, the deep Pacific waters off Hawaii, mountain observatories, balloons, satellites.

    Perhaps it's time for a history of how these demands on computation and data acqusition have helped shaped computing today?

    And also re. the thread on antimatter as a propulsion fuel, I do seem to remember some studies on it. There have been a few atoms of anti-hydrogen made at CERN, but to make any significant quantities would be unbelievably expensive and energy intensive.
  • duh.... you use dilithium crystals :)

    "We switched the USS Enterprise's usual dilithium crystals with Folgers Crystals. Lets watch....."

  • Re:Antimatter Galaxies? em, duh (Score:3)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Tuesday August 17, 1999 @03:55AM (#1743158)
    Wow, that is like deep and freaky man, but like, dude, I got something even more out there.

    Like, imagine this dude who lives in the mirror right. What he would call right, would be what I call left, and what he would call left, would be what I call right.

    Deep shit...
  • AFAIK the reason it is believed that the Big Bang created more matter is that we are unable to observe large groups of antimatter such as antimatter galaxies (as would be consistent with a universe full of both matter and antimatter from the Big Bang).

    Now this experiment may cause some changes to that model (and then again it may not).

    Doug
  • Does anybody know if they also try to collect antimatter on their other missions? If matter and anti-matter cannot co-exist (charged protons don't count, anti-helium would not carry a charge) one would think they would have a better chance of finding decent antimatter in deeper space not crowded with matter. Something like putting a cowcatcher on the front of one of their rockets should bring up more interesting stuff than a huge balloon...(so to speak)
  • Well, I think Bizarro ByTor is probably a Communist politition in the United Soviet States of America while I sit here in Flint Michigan testing Linux software. Muhahahahaha
  • Wait, how do we know we aren't theh bizarro uses?
  • I think it would be pretty rare that big chunks of matter and antimatter actually collided, unless maybe their centers collided -- galaxies are pretty sparse collections of matter. You'd probably get a lot of dust colliding though, and the few actual star collisions would be quite impressive I'm sure. E = 2*m*c*c = a whole hell of a lot when m is a stellar mass.
  • Your skin is being bombarded by antimatter particles all the time. Single particles don't matter all that much to macroscopic structures like balloons and skin though. Unless it hits something real small like a DNA site. In that case you might have a mutant cell but it will probably just keep on working or die, the odds of it being cancerous are very low. Balloons don't have to worry.
  • I bet that on the anti-Earth, anti-Linus Torvalds has a monopoly over the anti-computer industry, except that a subculture of anti-geeks use a product called "Windows" that would be the anti-killer app if it would only gain acceptance by the anti-public.
    --
  • I can only say that anti-matter in the classic sense will have an extremely hard time existing along with us. The problem lies in negative energy, which flows backward in time as opposed to our positive energy and our negative but positive anti-matter which flows forward in time. Negative energy (which is always showing up and disappearing (particularly in vacuums) due to its ever changing relationship with its position in time and our universe's position in time) will react with the anti-matter of our universe and in doing so they in effect cancel each other out. We're lucky that we're not made of anti-matter as we'd not exist due to this simple fact. The prospect of finding molecules of anti-matter is extremely slim, as the larger amount of anti-matter you have, the more chance you have of negative energy reacting with your anti-matter, which will immediately destroy any complex structure composed of anti-matter. This completely rules out finding galaxies made of anti-matter. One would think that by now all anti-matter in our universe would be gone, but this of course is wrong. The 'collision' which we've used to create anti-matter is extremely common throughout the universe and therefore, we have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of anti-matter, yet no 'complex' structures comprised of anti-matter.
  • Standard physics texts.. haha, you mean the only true BS in the world? As a believer in the Heisenberg-Bohr tranquilizing philosophy, I've been privy to the real laws of physics longer than most of you have been alive. I've forgotten more of that standard physics BS than you've ever known. No offence.
  • On the contrary anonymous coward, I hate Star Trek and try not to watch it. Mr. Spock's recklessly flawed logic tends to disgust me. Good point though.
  • I am amused and the notion of "collecting" anti-matter. When a positron (that's the electron's anti-matter counterpart) and an electron come in contact, they annhilate one another, producing two 511 KeV photons. So my question is, how do you "collect" antimatter, in our universe, without antimatter and matter annhilating each other before you get a chance to study it?
  • >>(Proud contributor to the teach-a-/.-admin-to-spell foundation)
    > (Proud contributor to the teach-AN-admin-grammar foundation)
    >retard

    (Proud contributer to the teach a slashdot admin to spell foundation)
    therefore: (Proud contributer to the teach a-/.-admin-to-spell foundation)
    retard
  • Warp speed Mr Sulu! SCI-FI is gradually becoming reality. Wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to convert the anti-matter into a power source. We might be launching anti-matter collectors on a regular basis...
  • According to the laws of physics, there should be an equal amount of anti-matter as there is matter.
    There should be anti-galaxies, anti-stars and anti-civilazations (hehehe). Also, when anti-matter and matter collide, they 'cancle out' each other, or they dissapear.

    However, I was watching a TV show and it showed that if we could harness the power of anti-matter, it would take about a chunk of anti-matter the size of a shirt pocket button to launch the space shuttle (hmm...no wonder NASA wants to find this stuff).

    Also, speaking in theory, shouldn't there be neutral matter? There are protons (positive), electrons (negitive) and neutrons (neutral), anti-electrons (positive), anti-protons (negitive) and anti-neutrons (neutral), why not neutral-matter?

    (BTW, I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but, the edge of the atmosphere is a lot higher then 20 miles high)

    That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
    JM
    Big Brother is watching, vote Libertarian!!
  • I always knew Bizzaro World existed.

    I wonder what the Bizarro Me is doing at this moment? Probably tanning on a tropical island, drinking margaritas and surounded by beautiful women. While I sit at my desk with coffee and my 54 year old secretary outside my office, in exotic Kalamazoo Michigan.

    That Bastard!
  • No, there is slight asymmetry between matter and attimatter. It is believed that Big Bang created slightly more matter than antimatter [google.com], and then almost everything annihilated.
    --
  • The whole concept of antimatter is kinda abstract to me..
  • hey when did we (as a race) find anti-matter? and is it anything like the Doctor Who antimatter? that would be quite entertaining.

    -------------------------
    "it tastes like burning."
    - Ralph (the simpsons.)
    -------------------------
  • You would put it in a magnetic bottle or accelerator ring. Antimatter (positrons, antiprotons, the pions, muons, kaons, W+ and W-, etc, ad nausium) have been in production and use in one form or another at accelerator labs here on earth for quite a while (cern, fermilab, triumf, psi, etc). It is an important tool for the study of the fundamental symmetries in nature.

    One big puzzle in astronomy/cosmology is actually why matter exists at all; why is the universe asymmetric, i.e., made up of matter and not antimatter? tough question. Finding the distribution of antimatter of cosmic origin would go a long way to solving this problem, but, since the x-ray telescopes don't see the gammas of matter-antimatter annihilation with any great frequency, it is dubious that any balloon will help much.

    An antimatter flux from the sun, however, is really interesting...
  • The concept of `negative energies' was invented in the 1930's when Dirac was trying to justify his equation as a representation of electrons. The Dirac equation is a replacement for the Schrodinger equation in Quantum Mechanics, and was necessary since Schrodinger's equations is not relativistically correct, nor does it take account of electron spin (which amounts to much the same thing; c.f. E. Wigner, annals of mathematics, vol 40, jan. 1939. this is really dry stuff).

    Anyway, when Dirac was first playing with his equation, he found two solutions which we now consider to be the electrons and positrons (anti-electrons) but, since he was only looking for electrons he misinterpreted the second solution as electrons with negative energies
    (he tried to make them into protons: can't blaim him for trying)

    Some time later, Feynman and Stuckelberg came along and demonstrated that the negative energy solutions that Dirac had found were really the prediction of a positive energy anti-electron. They also showed that within the framework of the equations, pushing an electron along `the wrong way' in time gave the same mathematical behaviour as a positron going forward in time.

    In The Dancing Wu Li Masters, one has a laymans approach to all that. Sadly, most of what is now known as Quantum Field Theory is not easily accessable without oodles of mathematics, and most popularizations are stuck with the ideas of the 1930's and 40's, which have evolved quite a bit by now. Dirac's equation is still very important and is used frequently by particle physicists, but its interpretation has changed.

    Suffice it to say that negative energy was an interesting idea at the time, but it didn't survive contact with the reality of particle physics for very long. For more information, i'd suggest the first chapter of David Griffiths book, Introduction to Elementary Particles.
  • If this theorotical anti-universe is true, would this mean there is an identicle me walking around in anti-matter land?
  • I agree. I'm about half-way through "The Elegant Universe" and thoroughly enjoying it. Another one to check out is "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku.

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