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GENEVA – Researchers in Geneva are embarking on a unique experiment, taking antiprotons on a journey in a truck, a feat never attempted before.
The challenge lies in the nature of antimatter, which when it encounters regular matter, results in mutual destruction in a blink. Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are cautiously planning to transport around 100 antiprotons on Tuesday. These particles are contained in a vacuum-sealed, specially engineered box and stabilized by ultra-cold magnets.
The plan involves carefully loading this box into a truck for a brief half-hour drive, aiming to observe if these minuscule particles can be safely transported on the road without any accidental leakage. If successful, the antiprotons will be safely returned to the laboratory.
The complexity of handling antimatter, such as antiprotons, lies in its delicate nature. According to current scientific understanding, each particle has a corresponding antiparticle that mirrors it but carries an opposite charge.
When these antiparticles meet their counterparts, they annihilate, releasing energy proportional to their masses. Any unexpected jolts during the transport not mitigated by the specialized container could jeopardize the entire operation.
Tuesday’s practice is a first step toward making good on hopes, one day, to deliver CERN antiprotons to researchers at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, which is about eight hours away in normal driving conditions.
The antiprotons have been encased in a 1,000-kilogram (2,200 pounds) box called a “transportable antiproton trap.” It’s compact enough to fit through ordinary laboratory doors and fit on a truck. It uses superconducting magnets cooled to -269 degrees Celsius (-452 Fahrenheit) that allows the antiprotons to be remain suspended in a vacuum — not touching the inner walls, which are made of … matter.
The mass in Tuesday’s test — slightly less than that of about 100 hydrogen atoms — is so little, experts say, that the worst possible outcome is the loss of the antiprotons. Even if they do touch matter, any release of energy would be unnoticeable, only an oscilloscope, which picks up electrical signals, would be able to detect it.
The trap, says CERN spokeswoman Sophie Tesauri, “is supposed to contain these antiprotons no matter what: if the truck stops, if it starts again, if it has to slam on the brakes — all that.” Work remains: The trap can contain the antiprotons on its own for only about four hours, and the drive to Düsseldorf is twice that.
The Geneva-based center is best known for its Large Hadron Collider, a network of magnets that accelerates particles through a 27-kilometer (17-mile) underground tunnel and slams them together at velocities approaching the speed of light. Scientists then study the results of those collisions.
But the sprawling, buzzing complex of scientific experiment is more than just about smashing atoms together: the World Wide Web, for example, was invented here by Britain’s Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.
Heinrich Heine University is seen as a better place to study antiprotons in-depth, because CERN — with all its other activities — generates a lot of magnetic interference that can skew the study of antimatter.
But to get them there, those antiprotons will have to avoid touching anything on the way.
The center’s Antiproton Decelerator, where a proton beam gets fired into a block of metal, causes collisions that generate secondary particles, including lots of antiprotons. It’s billed as a unique machine that produces low-energy antiprotons for the study of antimatter.
CERN’s “Antimatter Factory,” lab officials say, is the only place in the world where scientists can store and study antiprotons.
The center has been experimenting with antimatter for years, and has made breakthroughs on measurement, storage and interaction of antimatter. Two years ago, the team transported a “cloud” of about 70 protons — not antiprotons — across CERN’s campus.
It’s a similar drill this time, except that with antiprotons, a much better vacuum chamber is needed, according to Christian Smorra, head of a team behind the apparatus designed to store and transport antimatter.
Jittery test teams weren’t available for interviews before the exercise, but were expected to explain the results afterward on Tuesday.
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