A team of scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory including those from India created the heaviest anti-matter (anti-helium nucleus). What is/ are the implication/ implications of the creation of Anti-matter?
- 1.It will make mineral prospecting and oil exploration easier and cheaper.
- 2.It will help probe the possibility of the existence of stars and galaxies made of anti-matter.
- 3.It will help understand the evolution of the universe.
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only
Answer (b): 2 and 3 only. Anti-helium-4 was made by the STAR experiment at Brookhaven's RHIC collider. Its value lies in basic physics: it helps the search for antimatter stars and galaxies, and the study of why the universe is made of matter. It has no use in mineral or oil exploration.
- ✗ 1. Creating anti-helium nuclei in a particle collider is fundamental research into matter and antimatter. Such fleeting antinuclei have no application in prospecting for minerals or oil.
- ✓ 2. Producing anti-helium-4 in the laboratory informs space searches such as the AMS experiment. A detection of antihelium-4 in space could indicate large quantities of antimatter segregated from matter, such as antimatter stars or galaxies.
- ✓ 3. Matter and antimatter are understood to have been created in equal amounts at the Big Bang, yet the universe appears to be made entirely of matter. RHIC's collisions recreate conditions of the early universe, so antimatter studies there help in understanding how the universe evolved.
Remember · Antimatter research, such as anti-helium-4 at RHIC (Brookhaven, 2011), bears on cosmology: the matter–antimatter imbalance and the search for antimatter in space. It has no use in mineral or oil exploration.
Sources
- Brookhaven National Laboratory: RHIC Physicists Nab New Record for Heaviest Antimatter ↗ “One of the great mysteries of physics is why our universe appears to be made entirely of ordinary matter when matter and antimatter are understood to have been created in equal amounts at the time of the Big Bang. … An observation of antihelium-4 by the AMS experiment could indicate the existence of large quantities of antimatter somehow segregated from the matter in our universe”
Question: UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) 2012, General Studies Paper I. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 25 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·
