History

In 1898, a British scientist named Arthur Schuster, postulated that there were entire stellar systems of antimatter that were indistinguishable from our solar system and introduced the names "antimatter" and "anti-atoms". He suggested that matter and antimatter would annihilate each other to produce an enormous quantity of energy.

In 1928, Paul Dirac developed an equation for combining quantum theory and special relativity. The solution contained an electron with positive energy, and a positive electron with negative energy. After the discovery of the positron, anti-proton and anti-neutron, Dirac’s Theory of Symmetry speculated on the existence of anti-planets, and anti-stars.

For the last fifty years, physicists have built accelerators to discover new elementary particles. In 1967, Steven Weinberg theorized that weak forces and electromagnetic were the same at high energy levels, which was confirmed by physicists at CERN and Fermilab in 1973. Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow, and Abdus Salam, were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979.

In April 2002, Norm Hansen announced the discovery that comets are composed of antimatter to the joint meeting of American Physical Society and American Astronomical Society. When antimatter enters our solar system, it is called comets. The comet's plasma coma and tails are created by the solar wind and dust particles blasting antimatter fragments, dust and ions off the comet's surface. On July 23, 2002, a sun grazer comet collided with the sun and released enough energy to supply the world's energy needs for 10,000 years. Light and x-rays are produced from matter-antimatter annihilation taking place on the comet's surface and in the plasma coma and tails.

The amount of antimatter in our solar system is a million times less than scientists had estimated. Antimatter is mirror image of matter and is also composed of elements. The updated Periodic Table of Elements has 109 matter and 109 antimatter elements. Each of the antimatter element’s nuclear, physical, and chemical properties have been defined to such an extent that people know almost as much about antimatter as matter.

On July 4 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft's collision with 9P/Tempel 1 comet confirms that comets are natural sources of antimatter. It has been speculated that within 21st century, antimatter energy will provide power for people's homes and businesses and will bring every country into the 21st century without destroying our environment.

Continue to current research on antimatter.