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Researchers Find Stars that May Be Made of Antimatter
Research published in Physical Review D found evidence for the possibility of antistars, stars made of antimatter. This research, if correct, could imply that substantial amounts of antimatter somehow managed to survive in isolated pockets of space.
The team behind this new research examined 10 years' worth of observations from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Out of 5,800 gamma-ray sources, the team found that 14 of them had gamma-rays with energies expected of matter-antimatter annihilation. Annihilation is a process that occurs when a subatomic particle collides with its respective antiparticle. The two particles essentially “cancel” out the other, annihilating both particles. When we see evidence of this type of collision in space, it means antimatter must have been or is still present in the area.
The 14 gamma-ray sources in this study did not match any known gamma-ray sources, such as black holes and pulsars, lending even more credibility towards the antistar theory. However, it will be incredibly hard to prove that they are, in fact, antistars.
“It would be practically impossible to say that [the candidates] are actually antistars. It would be much easier to disprove.” — Simon Dupourqué, co-author of the study and astrophysicist at the Institute of Research in Astrophysics and Planetology in…
