The first train to transport the most expensive material on the planet

Researchers plan to use trucks to transport containers of antimatter to laboratories in Europe by 2025.

Antimatter is the most expensive substance on Earth —it costs trillions of dollars to produce a gram—and can only be made in particle physics labs like the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. Antimatter is also difficult to handle. If it comes into contact with ordinary matter, both annihilate, releasing a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation. Only by carefully combining strong electric and magnetic fields in special equipment can scientists store antimatter safely.

Inside the world's only antimatter factory at CERN. (Photo: Julien Marius Ordan/CERN)

"This makes transporting antimatter very difficult, but we are getting close to making the first trip. Antimatter contains a lot of information that can be provided. That's why we do this , " the Guardian quoted Professor Stefan Ulmer at CERN as saying on December 8.

Scientists want to study antimatter because they believe it could hold the answer to a fundamental mystery. "We believe that the Big Bang created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which should have annihilated each other, leaving behind a universe of electromagnetic radiation and almost nothing else," Ulmer said.

However, the fact that the universe is filled with galaxies, stars, planets, and living things made of matter shows that this hypothesis is wrong. There is a fundamental asymmetry that favors matter and prevents the universe from becoming a void.

For this reason, physicists want to study the differences between the particles that make up matter and antimatter. This could provide clues to why matter dominates the universe, as CERN scientist Barbara Maria Latacz once said: "We are trying to understand why we exist."

Matter is made up of subatomic particles like protons and electrons, while antimatter is made up of particles like antiprotons and positrons (also known as antielectrons). An important source of antiprotons is at CERN, in the Antiproton Decelerator , where antiprotons are produced, collected, and studied. The goal is to precisely measure their properties and compare them to protons.

Background magnetic fields near the machine are limiting this work, so the scientists want to move the samples to other labs. 'By moving them to a new location, we can make measurements 100 times more precise and understand the antiprotons better ,' Ulmer explains.

To achieve this goal, CERN built transportable equipment containing superconducting magnets, ultracold cooling systems and vacuum chambers – where antiprotons can be trapped, avoiding contact with ordinary matter – and transported in seven-ton trucks.

Initially, the antiprotons will only be transported within CERN. By 2025, the containers will be transported further afield, to a dedicated precision laboratory at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany. 'In the long term, we want to transport them to any laboratory in Europe,' said Christian Smorra, who leads the transport project.