Overview
- CERN moved about 100 antiprotons in a 1,000‑kilogram superconducting trap during a four‑hour test that included a half‑hour truck ride on Tuesday.
- The particles were held in a vacuum by magnets cooled to about −269°C, inside a box built to handle stops, starts, and road bumps without contact with matter.
- The trap can sustain the antiprotons on its own for roughly four hours, which falls short of the eight‑hour drive to Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
- Lab officials said the tiny mass involved means the worst outcome is losing the particles, as any annihilation would release energy too small to notice without instruments.
- The program draws on CERN’s Antimatter Factory, the only place that stores low‑energy antiprotons, and follows an earlier on‑campus move of a small proton cloud two years ago.