Hello Can someone tell me what sources in the Universe produce

[Gorn]

Hello.. Can someone tell me what sources in the Universe produce anti-matter? Do black-holes, stars? stellar explosions?

I can assume if these things are large in number...there should be a lot of anti-matter floating around in the Universe.

I know a lot of it gets destroyed in the interstellar medium..but because the medium is "thin" there should still be a lot of anti-matter out there floating around. Also, there should be a lot in the vicinity of the Earth as well. And if so...could you not simply harvest or collect it up in a big way to be used as fuel or for other purposes?

Thanks for any and all responses.
Bye.
G.

 

[Chronos]

Observation suggests there is hardly any anti matter left in the universe. We would otherwise see sustained gamma ray bursts from colliding gas clouds and galaxies.

 

[BlackHole213]

The reason why there is hardly any antimatter left is because matter severely outnumbers its counterpart. Therefore, antimatter is usually annihalated.

I do not what sources produce antimatter naturally, but I do know that matter-antimatter reactions are responsible for the "evaporation" of black holes.

On the CERN website, http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html , it read that that antimatter first needs to be produced to produce the energy required in matter-antimatter reactions. However, the energy required to produce antimatter far outweighs the amount of energy produced during a reaction. Therefore, matter-antimatter reactions are not a feasible source of energy at this time.

 

[Janus]

Hello.. Can someone tell me what sources in the Universe produce anti-matter?
G.

Some radionuclides decay by the emission of a positron, which is the antimatter equivalent of the electron. Of course, these positrons don't last long, as they soon meet up with electrons and undergo mutual annihilation.

 

[Phyisab****]

I don't think there are any known macroscopic sources of antimatter like you are thinking of. As in, there are no active galactic nuclei which shoot a jet of antimatter out one side and non-antimatter out the other or anything crazy like that.

 

[DaveC426913]

Wiki has some comments on possible sources of minute quantities of antimatter:

Antiparticles are created everywhere in the universe where high-energy particle collisions take place. High-energy cosmic rays impacting Earth's atmosphere (or any other matter in the solar system) produce minute quantities of antimatter in the resulting particle jets, which are immediately annihilated by contact with nearby matter. It may similarly be produced in regions like the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and other galaxies, where very energetic celestial events occur (principally the interaction of relativistic jets with the interstellar medium). The presence of the resulting antimatter is detectable by the gamma rays produced when positrons annihilate with nearby matter. The gamma rays' frequency and wavelength indicate that each carries 511 keV of energy (i.e. the rest mass of an electron or positron multiplied by c2).

Recent observations by the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) satellite may explain the origin of a giant cloud of antimatter surrounding the galactic center. The observations show that the cloud is asymmetrical and matches the pattern of X-ray binaries, binary star systems containing black holes or neutron stars, mostly on one side of the galactic center. While the mechanism is not fully understood, it is likely to involve the production of electron-positron pairs, as ordinary matter gains tremendous energy while falling into a stellar remnant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter#Origin_and_asymmetry

 

[Phyisab****]

Very interesting I stand corrected.