In 2026, researchers successfully transported antimatter in a truck using a portable trap that employed electromagnetic fields to hold 92 antiprotons.

At CERN's Antimatter Factory, researchers create and guide antiprotons and antielectrons together to form antihydrogen, and all these antiparticles are analyzed to help scientists study the behavior of antimatter.

If they could be built, antimatter drives, which run on energy released from the collision of matter and antimatter particles, would be the most efficient engines in existence.

Antimatter particles possess the same mass and spin as their normal particle counterparts, but possess an opposite charge and transform into pure energy upon colliding with normal matter.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second.

Antimatter can be created from dark lightning—high-energy light emitted by deflected electrons after they are accelerated to near the speed of light by thunderstorms.

Antimatter was predicted to exist four years before it was observed, though the mathematics responsible for the prediction described it as matter with negative energy.

Depictions of antimatter in science fiction include misleading portrayals of it coming from parallel universes, being mined from asteroids, and serving as a workable laser beam.

Antimatter was discovered by examining debris from collisions between atmospheric gases and cosmic rays—high-energy matter particles from space.

In 1997, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory identified 'positron geysers'—fountains of antimatter particles—emerging from near the center of the Milky Way.

Antimatter's rarity across the cosmos is one of the biggest problems in modern physics because the high-energy environment of the early universe should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

Before 1932, when particle accelerators were first used for nuclear research, scientists relied on naturally radioactive substances to advance their understanding of the atomic nucleus.

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest cryogenic system, which uses 10,000 metric tons of liquid nitrogen and 120 metric tons of helium to cool 36,000 metric tons of magnets to temperatures colder than outer space.

Particle accelerators propel matter toward small targets at high speed

Devices like cathode-ray tube televisions were once basic particle accelerators, but modern ones, such as the Large Hadron Collider, use massive magnetic fields and circular tunnels to achieve energies high enough to recreate the conditions just after the big bang.

A beam of neutrinos can be created by firing a beam of high-energy protons at a target to produce unstable particles that decay into neutrinos.

It may be possible to create dark matter in particle accelerators

In high-energy collisions, exotic forms of matter can be produced by directly converting energy into mass according to *E = mc*². Even though a dark matter particle would not be directly observable, its creation would result in unaccounted-for mass, which can be compared to potential dark matter candidates for indirect detection.

Although built from 1996 to 2008, the Large Hadron Collider relies on accelerators built starting in 1954 to help bring protons to 99.9999991% the speed of light—about 2.73 million football fields per second.

At the Large Hadron Collider, protons are accelerated so close to the speed of light that they would lag behind a laser by just 10 feet after 14 minutes of travel.

As of 2025, LUX-ZEPLIN is the world's most sensitive dark matter experiment, which is designed to indirectly detect a potential candidate for the invisible form of matter.

Within ALICE—A Large Ion Collider Experiment—at the Large Hadron Collider, scientists have created quark-gluon plasma—an exotic form of matter present in the moments after the Big Bang.

Efforts to find Majorana particles may finally lead to reliable quantum computers

Though the particle—which is its own antiparticle—remains theoretical, scientists from Microsoft to Google continue developing systems to mimic this property towards building error-resistant quantum computers. Scientists at UCSB have been attempting to get the particle using just pencil lead and Scotch tape.

Learn about five of the largest particle accelerators on Earth, which, as of 2026, are led by the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

View the most expensive materials on Earth, led by antimatter and other elements forged in particle accelerators.

Simulate the impact of an antimatter bomb, which releases energy from the annihilation of matter with antimatter, around the world.

If particle accelerators did create black holes by packing tremendous energy into a small volume, then trillions would be created in Earth's atmosphere daily by cosmic rays.

As of 2026, 75 of the 86 particles discovered by the Large Hadron Collider have been found by the LHCb experiment—a detector that explores the decay of particles made of beauty and charm quarks.

Each year, the Large Hadron Collider undergoes a winter shutdown—when electricity costs are highest—and bringing it back online requires weeks of tests, including some involving high-energy particles from outer space.

At the Large Hadron Collider, scientists have transformed lead into gold—a process known as chrysopoeia, which alchemists sought for centuries.

Particle accelerators have been used to reveal detailed ant anatomy

Using a synchrotron facility at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a pair of X-ray beams swept across about 2,200 ant specimens to create over 200 terabytes of projection images from multiple angles. The images were compiled into micrometer-resolution 3D reconstructions of 792 species, which are freely accessible on the Antscan platform.

Watch how the machine at the heart of NASA's Cold Atom Lab produces atoms near absolute zero—the coldest theoretical temperature in the universe—for experiments involving quantum phenomena.

The first circular particle accelerator was narrower than the average cereal bowl

The 1939 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Ernest Lawrence for inventing the cyclotron. By comparison, the Large Hadron Collider is 5 miles in diameter and is the largest cryogenic system in the world, cooling its electromagnets to temperatures colder than those found in outer space.

The average banana produces one positron—the antimatter counterpart to an electron—every 75 minutes as its trace amounts of radioactive potassium decay.

Particle accelerators detect subatomic particles using millions of sensors

Calorimeters measure the energy of particles. Tracking devices can measure momentum and charge from the trajectory of particles, which is determined by recording tiny electrical signals. Time-of-flight detectors provide particle velocities directly and particle mass indirectly, giving physicists a suite of properties to compare with those of known matter.

Some particles that mediate fundamental forces in nature are their own antiparticles, such as photons—particles of light and mediators of the electromagnetic force.

View a step-by-step breakdown of how helium is forged in stars alongside antimatter

During the proton-proton chain, four hydrogen nuclei—protons—are fused together to create an alpha particle—a helium nucleus—and produce the energy that supports a star's own weight. Through radioactive decay, two of these protons become neutrons, with each releasing an antielectron, or positron, and an electron neutrino.

Superconducting qubits have become foundational to today’s quantum computing efforts

Relying on electrons experiencing no friction across metal, these qubits require extremely low temperatures and behave like artificial atoms. The first superconducting qubit, invented in 1999, was large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

Learn how to build your own cloud chamber to detect cosmic rays—particles from space that move near the speed of light—at home.

Axions, a hypothetical subatomic particle, are a leading dark matter candidate

Among the possibilities for what makes up dark matter, some physicists champion axions, which could clump into galaxy-scale quantum states. These states would act as massive, unified superparticles that could explain the observational evidence for the universe's missing matter.

Solid neon mirrors help trap single electrons to create stable quantum bits

Researchers created this new unit of information for a quantum computer by trapping a single electron near the surface of solid neon. The electron was held in its quantum state by attraction to its mirror image.

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider will provide a tenfold increase in particle collisions compared with the initial LHC infrastructure by increasing the number of ions in collision bundles and by concentrating the ion beams.

Some theorists have suggested that dark matter consists of supersymmetric particles—massive, hypothetical versions of known particles, such as the sneutrino, which is the supersymmetric partner of the neutrino.

Scientists have determined the properties of cosmic rays by analyzing their trajectories in bubble chambers—containers filled with a vapor that clings to charged particles.

The total length of superconducting wire at the Large Hadron Collider spans about 250,000 kilometers (155,000 miles)—enough to wrap around the equator 6.2 times.

Take a 360-degree tour of ATLAS, one of two general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider and the largest particle detector by volume ever built. (VR device-compatible)

The hypothetical matter that neutron stars' cores may contain, including strange quarks

Models of the extreme pressures and energies in neutron stars suggest conditions resembling those believed to have existed within a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. In these environments, the quarks that make up protons and neutrons in trios may instead form pairs that combine to form one quantum object. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Dilution fridges create the colder-than-space environments needed for quantum computers by successively lowering temperatures across layers plated with gold, which reduces heat transfer via radiation and gives them a chandelier-like appearance.

As of 2023, the world's smallest particle accelerator is smaller than a penny

The prototype is an example of a photonic accelerator, which utilizes tiny lasers to accelerate electrons rather than relying on oscillating electromagnetic fields to move them. It can deliver about 1 electron per second with energies equivalent to those found in cathode-ray tube televisions.

Scientists are experimenting with ways to probe the multiverse theory

Researchers are simulating vacuum bubbles—the theorized starting points of universes—using quantum computers, digital models, and exotic lab setups to study how they form, expand, and possibly collide. One experiment aims to "blow" artificial universe-like bubbles inside ultra-cold quantum gases, potentially capturing real-time glimpses of cosmic birth processes in a lab.

Fermilab's ICARUS experiment is searching for hypothetical sterile neutrinos

Neutrinos are a group of three chargeless, lightweight particles that can transform into one another via a quantum mechanical phenomenon called neutrino oscillations. The rate of these oscillations can be determined by measuring the amount of each type at different distances, where data inconsistencies would suggest the existence of new physics.

At the CERN Control Center, where the Large Hadron Collider and connected accelerators are managed, champagne bottles from parties commemorating major milestones, such as the first collisions or a new record energy, are collected.

The hypothetical particle that travels faster than light

Astrophysicists inspired by science fiction developed the theory of the tachyon—a Greek word for "fast"—which is a field or particle hypothetically able to travel faster than light. Although no experiments have confirmed any part of it, it's a fun theory to consider.