World’s most expensive and dangerous matter about to take a road trip for the first time. Should you be concerned? 

Researchers are getting ready for one of science’s most extraordinary efforts: transporting a container of antimatter across Europe in a truck. 

Antimatter is the most expensive substance on Earth, with the cost of just one gram estimated to be several trillion dollars. It can only be produced in specialised particle physics laboratories, like the Cern research centre near Geneva. 

It is extremely difficult to handle antimatter. If it comes into contact with regular matter, both are annihilated in a violent release of electromagnetic radiation. Storing it safely requires that powerful electrical and magnetic fields be carefully controlled in special devices. 

“Transporting it is extremely difficult, but we are on the verge of making our first journey,” said Professor Stefan Ulmer, a Cern scientist. “Antimatter has a lot to teach us, and that’s why we are doing this.” 

This transport marks a scientific milestone, though it has a fictional parallel. In Dan Brown’s thriller Angels & Demons, later adapted into a 2009 film starring Tom Hanks, terrorists steal a canister of antimatter from Cern and attempt to destroy the Vatican.  

However, scientists emphasise that the possibility of such an explosion in real life is negligible — there won’t be enough antimatter to produce any significant blast. 

The main objective behind shifting the antimatter is to explore it because scientists feel it might help solve one profound mystery. “We believe the Big Bang produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter,” said Ulmer. “These would have annihilated each other, and the universe would be left filled with only electromagnetic radiation and little else.” 

Yet, the universe is composed of matter — galaxies, stars, planets and life itself — implying that there must be an imbalance that favoured matter over antimatter, so the universe did not end up as a barren, empty space. 

Physicists are trying to understand the difference between matter and antimatter particles to explain why matter dominated. As Cern scientist Barbara Maria Latacz said to Nature, “We are trying to understand why we exist”. 

Matter is composed of particles such as protons and electrons, whereas antimatter contains antiprotons and positrons, which are essentially the antimatter equivalent of electrons.  

Cern is home to the Antiproton Decelerator that produces, accumulates, and investigates antiprotons - a primary source of such particles. 

The aim is to measure with high precision the properties of antiprotons and compare them with those of protons. The Base experiment may discover tiny variations that could account for the reason why matter won out over antimatter. 

Magnetic fields near the device currently limit the accuracy of these measurements, thus scientists transport antimatter samples to other laboratories. “Transporting them will allow us to achieve 100 times more precise measurements and gain a deeper understanding of antiprotons,” said Ulmer. 

To achieve this, Cern has developed transportable devices containing superconducting magnets, cryogenic cooling systems, and vacuum chambers where antiprotons can be safely stored and transported in seven-tonne trucks. 

Firstly, antiprotons will be transported within Cern itself. Over the next year, they will be moved to a precision lab at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. 

“In the long term, we want to transport antimatter to labs across Europe,” said Christian Smorra, the project leader. Doing so will hopefully help scientists find out why antimatter nearly vanished from the universe. “This could be a game-changer,” said Ulmer.