A York University professor is among an international group of scientists that has successfully trapped antihydrogen atoms for the first time, according to a paper published today in Nature. The experiment, conducted at the European Centre for Nuclear Research, used magnetic fields to trap the antimatter atoms for a tenth of a second – long enough to study them.

Antimatter – or the lack of it – is one of the biggest mysteries of science. During the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts. “The question is, ‘why are we left only with matter? Where did all the antimatter go?’ Successfully trapping antihydrogen is a huge step forward,” says Scott Menary, professor in York’s Department of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science & Engineering. “It opens up a whole new avenue for comparing and understanding matter and antimatter,” he says.

Still, some might ask, why put all this effort into studying something we can’t perceive? “That’s how it is with scientific discovery. You don’t know what will come out of it, precisely. It’s a long-term investment,” Menary says.

This effort is the next step in determining its atomic structure in detail, which could give new clues on why there is so much something, rather than a lot of nothing, in the universe.