Origin of Antimatter Cloud Discovered

Active Seti writes: "Scientists have proposed a wide range of explanations for the origin of antimatter, which is exceedingly rare in the cosmos. For years, many theories centered around radioactive elements produced in supernovae. Now four years of observations from the European Space Agency's Integral satellite may have cleared up one of the most vexing mysteries in our Milky Way: the origin of a giant cloud of antimatter surrounding the galactic center. Integral found that the cloud extends farther on the western side of the galactic center than it does on the eastern side. This imbalance matches the distribution of a population of binary star systems that contain black holes or neutron stars, strongly suggesting that these binaries are churning out at least half of the antimatter, and perhaps all of it. The antimatter is probably produced in a region near the neutron stars and black holes, where powerful magnetic fields launch jets of particles that rip through space at near-light speed. "We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this," says Gerry Skinner, co-investigator for Integral's Spectrometer which made the discovery."