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CERN Successfully Transports Antimatter by Truck in World-First Test Drive
CERN transported about 100 antiprotons in a 1,000-kg trap on a 4-km campus loop, aiming for future deliveries to quieter European labs for more precise antimatter studies.
- On Tuesday, March 24, 2026, CERN's BASE-STEP team successfully completed the first-ever road transport of antiprotons, driving a specialized 1,000-kilogram cryogenic trap around the Geneva campus to confirm system viability.
- To overcome research limitations, CERN scientists developed the BASE-STEP transportable Penning trap, enabling movement of antiprotons from the lab's 'Antimatter Factory' to external facilities for higher-precision matter-antimatter comparisons.
- Superconducting magnets cooled to-269°C kept roughly 91 of 100 antiprotons suspended in a vacuum, a process CERN officials confirmed posed no environmental danger due to the extremely small quantity involved.
- Physicist Stefan Ulmer called the successful test the 'starting point to a new era' for the field, while technical coordinator Francois Butin said 'It's fantastic!' about the achievement.
- Future plans involve delivering antiprotons to Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, though researchers must extend the trap's four-hour autonomous hold time to accommodate the eight-hour drive.
134 Articles
134 Articles
Physicists Successfully Deliver First Bottle of CERN Antimatter From the Antimatter Factory
For thirty minutes on Tuesday, a team of researchers white-knuckled it across the CERN campus on the outskirts of Geneva, completing the world’s first haul of antimatter particles ever attempted. Antimatter is incredibly unstable, making it notoriously difficult to store in a solid structure, let along the back of a cabover rig. Yet that’s exactly what they did, after physicists decided it was necessary to move antiprotons away from their CERN p…
Physics: Studying antiprotons gives physicists insight into the origin of the universe. But how do you get them to the place where you can do that best?…
Researchers from the Base experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have succeeded in transporting antimatter, a substance that disappears when it comes into contact with ordinary matter, for the first time in history.
It will help to understand the universe. Future applications from medicine to new materials
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