What is Anti-Matter?

It is hypothesized that every elementary particle in the Universe has a partner particle, known as an ‘antiparticle’.

The particle and its antiparticle share many similar characteristics, but many other properties are the exact opposite.

The electron, for example, has as its antiparticle the antielectron. They both have the same masses, but they have exactly opposite electrical charges.

Most of the human understanding of the antimatter comes from high energy accelerator experiments.

When a matter particle meets its antimatter particle, they destroy each other completely (i.e. annihilation), releasing the energy equivalent of their rest masses (following Einstein’s E = mc²).

For instance, when an electron meets an antielectron, the two annihilate and produce a burst of light which produces a corresponding energy level equivalent to the masses of the two particles.