This article appeared in the June 2021 issue of Discover magazine as "The Search Goes On" Become a subscriber to support our science journalism.
In 1996, Discover reported on a new experiment that would probe the far universe for signs of antimatter. These particles are theoretically identical in behavior to the ones we know, but with opposing electrical charges, among other differences.
Physicists’ theories about the Big Bang say there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created during the event. But we live in a universe full of matter, with little antimatter in sight.
There are different explanations for this, including that all of the antimatter might just be too far away to see. The search for distant antistars and antigalaxies was the focus of our April 1996 article, “The Antimatter Mission,” which chronicled the genesis of an experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). The experiment ...
