Search for Exploding Stars Leads to Unusual Finding (antimattera)

Search for Exploding Stars Leads to Unusual Finding (antimattera)

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Astronomers meeting in Washington last week announced that a recent search for bright exploding stars -- commonly called supernovas -- found something quite unusual: antimatter.

Usually stars like our sun are powered by fusion reactions in which the nuclei of two atoms fuse together to form a heavier nucleus. In Y-155, a star in the constellation Cetus, the astronomers argue that another process was crucial: the making and unmaking of antimatter particles.

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We'll probably see more of this in the news but this supernova was quite unusual and events lead scientist to believe that antimatter was involved.

"Y-155 different is its mass, an estimated 200 times heavier than our sun. With such a large mass, the pressure at the core of the star is so great that the light released in nuclear reactions is capable of creating new particles, electron-antielectron pairs. The creation of these particles actually hastens the collapse of the star and its eventual explosion."

"Y-155 the signature light cast out after the explosion was odd: most supernovas send out higher-energy blue light first followed by cooler red light, but in this case the red light came first then the blue. That and the much larger amount of radioactive nickel shooting outwards compared to common supernovas led the researchers to suspect that antimatter was involved in triggering the explosion."



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reply to post by plumranch


Antimatter evidence in our galaxy may already have been observed:

Wat's the matter with antimatter?

Astronomers have discovered evidence for antimatter near the center of our Milky Way galaxy by observing photons with an energy of 511 keV -- the energy created when a positron and an electron collide and annihilate. This image shows contours of 511 keV radiation detected by NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory overlaid on an optical picture of the Galactic center. The vertical structure is a jet of mutually-annihilating electrons and positrons. [more information from Northwestern University and NASA HQ]

We use antimatter in at least one application here on Earth, the PET scan:

On Earth all antimatter that exists is counted in individual atoms. Low energy positrons are routinely used in a medical imaging technique called Positron Emission Tomography as well as studies of important materials used in electronics circuits. These positrons are the result of the natural decay of radioactive isotopes.