Antimatter Atoms Captured

Whamo writes: "Researchers at CERN think they have created and stored thousands of antiatoms in a particle trap. The researchers first used powerful magnetic fields to trap antiprotons then exposed this to a beam of positrons. Initial results indicate that at least some of the antiparticles have bound together to become neutral antihydrogen atoms. How cool is that?"

Comments

Wow, antimatter atoms already

[syzxys]

Last time I heard about any "really new" developments in antimatter, they were just figuring out how to contain 10-100 protons (circa 1992) (I know, I'm dating myself, whatever. :-) This is really cool news.

Still, even a million atoms is really physically small. I wonder

• how much it weighs?
• whether it's visible to the naked eye? (well, duh, I guess being hydrogen gas it wouldn't be, or does it have interesting optical properties?
• how much energy it would give off if you mixed it with hydrogen?
• how long it will be till someone makes a weapon out of it. Would it even work?

Anyway, just my $0.01. :-)

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Re:Beating plowshares into swords

[naasking]

Of course, anti-matter engines are waaaaaaaay off

Actually, we already have anti-matter engines, they're just not very sophisticated. Pennsylvania State University and NASA are investigating these drives. The drive could power a mission to Mars in 120 days. That's: go to Mars (30 days), stay for 30 days, and come back (30 days). Sum: 120 days. That's awesome.

Ah, here we go:

Antimatter Catalyzed Micro Fission/Fusion

NASA Press release

Antimatter drives

ANTIPROTON-CATALYZED MICROFISSION/FUSION PROPULSION SYSTEMS FOR EXPLORATION OF THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND