Every fundamental particle in nature has its opposite, an antiparticle with the same size (mass) but opposite in charge and other properties. It’s extremely rare in nature, with none on Earth except transiently in some radioactive decays and cosmic ray impacts. Particles and antiparticles annihilate each other on contact You can’t just keep them hanging around.
At the international research center in Geneva, CERN, they routinely make antiprotons… not in macroscopic quantities, a few billion at a time. You have to peg the cost at trillions of dollars per gram! So, why make it, how can you keep it, and where can you use it? The interest in antimatter is intense among researchers – What are its properties? Why there is more matter than antimatter? (= Why We are here -that’s the way Barbara Maria Latacz at CERN puts it).
CERN research teams routinely trap antiprotons in evacuated magnetic containers for hours at a time. Now there are two teams who want to move those bottles by van to supply researchers at other labs. Yes, it’s tricky. That’s why it has taken years to develop the transport. The teams expect to have a van working by the end of 2025. Imagine the border crossing documents!
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org.
Source: Nature 5 December, pp. 13-14
