One of the lingering mysteries in physics is the supposed equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe - and a new experiment at CERN might explain why it isn't so.
All matter around us comprises elementary particles like protons and electrons, and antimatter is basically a matter composed of "mirrored" versions of these particles - sometimes called "antiparticles" - such as antiprotons positrons. Suppose antimatter and matter are basically mirror versions of each other. In that case, scientists argue that they should have been produced in the same amounts after the Big Bang - generally accepted as the origin of the Universe.
This poses a problem: if they are in equal amounts and that the collision of these mirror opposites leads to annihilation, antimatter should've canceled out all the matter in the universe. Obviously, this is not the case. Additionally, antimatter is now rarely detected, only found in trace amounts from radioactive decays and cosmic rays.
To read more, click here.