![]() For example, bananas release one positron – the antimatter equivalent of an electron – roughly every 75 minutes. Matter and antimatter atomīut other antimatter sources are even closer to home. Scientists have also seen evidence of antimatter production above thunderstorms. These antimatter particles reach our atmosphere at a rate ranging from fewer than one per square kilometre per century to more than 10 000 per square metre per second. Small amounts of antimatter constantly rain down on Earth in the form of cosmic rays – energetic particles from space. Physicists are hard at work trying to explain this asymmetry. So why do we exist in a Universe made almost entirely of matter? As far as physicists can tell, it is because, in the end, there was one extra matter particle for every billion (10 9) matter-antimatter pairs. This means that the Big Bang should have created and destroyed equal amounts of these particles. Matter and antimatter particles are produced as a pair and when they meet, they immediately annihilate each other, leaving nothing but energy behind. Antimatter should have annihilated all the matter in the UniverseĪntimatter particles are almost identical to their matter counterparts, except that they carry the opposite charge and spin. ![]() But antimatter is not just the stuff of science fiction – while these scenarios are far-fetched, there are still many facts about antimatter that will tickle your brain cells. ![]() And in Star Trek, the collision of matter and antimatter supplies energy to propel the starship Enterprise to faster-than-light speed. In the book Angels and Demons, Professor Langdon tries to save Vatican City from an antimatter bomb. The whole point of a reactor is to produce energy, and since both the processes of converting energy into antimatter and turning antimatter into energy will always have inefficiencies, you are better off just charging batteries or beaming the energy back to Earth directly (although this may also result in weapon applications).Antimatter has inspired many science fiction stories, but these fascinating facts show that it is not just reserved for fantasy. If you are trying to make an economically profitable fusion reactor, then no. Having that much matter in outer space would be way more than necessary for a kinetic bombardment attack, never-mind what you could do using antimatter. Exactly what you consider a "useful" amount of antimatter is highly dependent on what you are doing. In 1 year this Dyson sphere will produce $ 7.71*10^7kg $, which is about the mass of a very large ship. If your Dyson sphere orbits a Sun-like star, is a circle with the same radius of the Earth, and is 1 AU from the star, then this formula simplifies to: You divide by 2 because you need to produce matter and antimatter in equal amounts.Īccording to Forbes, the most efficient commercially available solar panels have an efficiency of about 20%. Where e is the efficiency of the Dyson sphere's collectors, t is how long the Dyson sphere as been active, L is the luminosity of the host star, S is the surface area of the Dyson sphere's collectors, r is the radius of the Dyson sphere from the host star, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum. The amount of antimatter produced by a Dyson sphere is simply the energy flux of the host star at the relevant distance times how long the Dyson sphere has been active. This is one of those problems where you just multiply everything together and you get the right answer.
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