Researchers test the interactions of antiprotons

Brookhaven's STAR detector, with a standard-sized physicist included for scale. (credit: John Timmer)

As far as our models of the Universe are concerned, matter and antimatter are roughly equivalent. Both experience the fundamental forces in the same way, and the Universe that we see could just as easily have been built out of antimatter.

But is that actually true? And, if not, could any difference explain why we're living in a matter-dominated Universe?

Finding out requires that we create and measure the properties and behavior of antimatter, something that's made challenging by its tendency to be annihilated on contact with the mundane matter of our testing hardware. Progress has been made in storing antimatter atoms in the lab and testing their properties. But some new data on antimatter has come from an experiment that essentially creates it by accident.

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