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Antimatter

Antimatter is matter composed of antiparticles, the mirror-image partners of ordinary particles. Each antiparticle has the same mass as its particle but opposite electric charge. When antimatter meets ordinary matter, they annihilate in a burst of energy described by Einstein's equation E=mc2, which is why it matters so much to scientists.

Although antimatter occurs naturally in cosmic ray collisions and radioactive decay, and is created at particle accelerators, only tiny fractions have been bound together in laboratories. The universe remains a great mystery: astronomers observe that the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter.

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: “In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding particles in "ordinary" matter.”
• en.wikipedia.org: “In theory, a particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge, and other differences in quantum numbers.”
• en.wikipedia.org: “The amount of energy released is usually proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter, in accordance with the mass–energy equivalence equation, E=mc2.”
• en.wikipedia.org: “Antimatter occurs in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioactive decay.”
• en.wikipedia.org: “There is strong evidence that the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter.”