New Delhi: The enigmatic universe harbours countless secrets within it, compelling scientists to put in every effort to delve deeper in order to extract information about its existence and consequent evolution.
Even though scientists and astronomers have managed to bring to the fore many revelations and discoveries, it is still safe to say that there are manifold secrets that the universe is still hiding.
While working towards discovering more about the structure and evolution of the entity we all are inevitably a part of, scientists just revealed something that would stun the best of us – the universe shouldn't even exist at all.
That's because at the very beginning of existence, the equal amounts of matter and antimatter present should have annihilated each other.
According to a report in Science Alert, the most recent research at CERN in Switzerland has found that apart from their opposing charges, they seem completely identical.
"All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the Universe should not actually exist," says one of the researchers, Christian Smorra.
"An asymmetry must exist here somewhere but we simply do not understand where the difference is. What is the source of the symmetry break?"
In order to understand this, we need to go back to when the Big Bang took place – which everyone believes was how the Universe was created. But was it?
The research claims that particles and antiparticles destroy one another when they come in contact with each other if they both have equal measures. This means that particles are n symmetry and the Universe would not exist – at least not in the form we see it today.
Scientists argued that, for Universe to form, there should be an imbalance (at least of the tiniest fraction), between particles and antiparticles, the TeCake reported.
For the study, researchers used antiprotons that had been isolated in 2015. The antiprotons were measured using the interaction of two traps that use electrical and magnetic fields to capture them.
The team was able to measure the magnetic force of the antiproton to a level that is 350 times more precise than ever before.
If there was an imbalance between protons and antiprotons, this level of precision would be the best bet for finding it.
As per a report, after finding no asymmetry between particles and antiparticles, the researchers will now work to develop even higher-precision measurements of protons and antiprotons to improve on the latest findings.
