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Origin of Antimatter Cloud Discovered

Posted by Soulskill on from the finding-an-anti-silver-lining dept.

Active Seti brings us news that astronomers have discovered the origin of an enormous antimatter cloud surrounding the galactic center. Data from the European Space Agency's "Integral" satellite indicated that the cloud's distribution is similar to that of a group of binary star systems containing black holes or neutron stars. From NASA's article: "The cloud itself is roughly 10,000 light-years across, and generates the energy of about 10,000 Suns. The cloud shines brightly in gamma rays due to a reaction governed by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2. Integral found that the cloud extends farther on the western side of the galactic center than it does on the eastern side. Integral found certain types of binary systems near the galactic center are also skewed to the west. Because the two "pictures" of antimatter and hard low-mass X-ray binaries line up strongly suggests the binaries are producing significant amounts of positrons."

4 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That's so cool! by stardaemon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That there is antimatter in the wild isn't news per se; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission. It's the amount, imo, that's interresting here. And the way it's being produced.

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  2. Re:That's so cool! by mapkinase · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And the fact of relative concentration in one place.

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  3. Re:Do those particles travel over here? by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 1, Interesting

    No (it's way too far way) and yes.

    The existence of such a cloud can only be explained by the massive creation of antimatter (there is most likely also the same amount of regular matter produced but it is probably cast the other way by an electric or magnetic field) that eventualy cleaned a portion of space of all regular matter. Puting any kind of matter into that cloud will result in particule-corresponding antiparticlue reaction into very high energy photon (gamma radiation). If an hypothetical spaceship entered the cloud, I don't know if it will be changed into pure energy almost instantly or not (the violent reaction at the surface of the hull will probably push back the antimatter cloud, and you need the same mass of antimatter to totally disintegrate the introduced matter) but it will be like putting it into a fusion reactor so the crew would die very fast anyway.

  4. Re:That's so cool! by kalirion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The question is, could that cloud ever form into an anti-matter star?