Experiments have tried to determine if the neutrino is its own antiparticle, but so far, they have turned up inconclusive. ![]() In this theory, at the start of time, a small fraction of neutrinos would have been able to transition from antimatter to matter, potentially creating a slight matter imbalance at the universe's inception. If the neutrino - a tiny, ghostly particle that barely interacts with other matter - actually is its own antiparticle, that might be the key to solving this problem. The discrepancy would have been very tiny. Less than 1 in 1 billion ordinary particles would have survived the chaos and gone on to form all the matter around us today, according to (opens in new tab), a Live Science sister site. One theory suggests that more matter than antimatter was created in the beginning of the universe, so that even after mutual annihilation, there was enough matter left to form stars, galaxies and, eventually, everything on Earth. Why matter came to dominate over antimatter is a major mystery. So if antimatter and matter were created in equal amounts and they behave identically, all the matter and antimatter created at the beginning of time should have annihilated on contact, leaving nothing behind. Scientists have measured the properties of particles and antiparticles with extremely high precision and found that both behave identically. As the universe cooled and expanded, particles of both matter and antimatter were produced. In the first moments after the Big Bang, only energy existed. ![]() ![]() Antimatter is also at the heart of a mystery about why the universe exists at all.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |