Learn why there could be stars made of antimatter. Plus: author Paul Greenberg’s tips to reduce your carbon footprint. There could be stars made of antimatter in our galaxy by Briana Brownell NASA - JSC Engineering - Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. (2013). Nasa.gov. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/engineering/projects/alpha_magnetic_spectrometer/index.html may. (2017, April 19). Giant space magnet may have trapped antihelium, raising idea of lingering pools of antimatter in the cosmos. Science | AAAS. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/giant-space-magnet-may-have-trapped-antihelium-raising-idea-lingering-pools-antimatter Dr Alfredo Carpineti. (2021, April 29). Where Antimatter Stars Are Located In The Milky Way (If They Actually Exist). IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/where-antimatter-stars-are-located-in-the-milky-way-if-they-actually-exist/ Poulin, V., Salati, P., Cholis, I., Kamionkowski, M., & Silk, J. (2019). Where do the AMS-02 antihelium events come from? Physical Review D, 99(2). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.99.023016 Additional resources from Paul Greenberg: Pick up "The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint" at your local bookstore: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593296769 Website: https://www.paulgreenberg.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/4fishgreenberg Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free!
Learn why there could be stars made of antimatter. Plus: author Paul Greenberg’s tips to reduce your carbon footprint.
There could be stars made of antimatter in our galaxy by Briana Brownell
Additional resources from Paul Greenberg:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free!
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/painless-tips-to-help-the-environment-w-paul-greenberg
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn why there could be stars made of antimatter in our galaxy. Then, author Paul Greenberg will share some simple, hassle-free changes you can make to help the environment.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Scientists think it’s possible that there are stars made of antimatter. The key word is possible: We haven’t found one for sure. But scientists have recently identified fourteen potential candidates.
As a refresher, antimatter is the same as regular matter, but its properties are reversed. For example, an electron has a negative charge. Its antiparticle, the positron, has a positive charge. So while stars like our sun fuse pairs of hydrogen atoms into helium atoms to release energy. an antistar would fuse antihydrogen into antihelium.
Because the fusion process that would turn antihydrogen into antihelium would be so similar to the process most stars use, antistars would look a lot like regular stars.
Except for one thing. When matter and antimatter come into contact with one another they annihilate each other and produce gamma rays. That means that, as regular particles of gas, dust, and ice float around the galaxy, they’d annihilate the antimatter particles around the antistar… and turn the antistar into a massive emitter of gamma rays.
That’s how the search for antistars began. Scientists looked for stars in our galaxy that emitted an unusually high amount of gamma rays using NASA's Fermi gamma-ray telescope. They found just fourteen in 100 billion. The next step will be to see whether we can explain this radiation with other possibilities. If not? We have a good candidate for an antistar.
Further evidence for antistars would be natural antihelium that reached Earth. Antihelium comes in two forms: antihelium-3, which has two antiprotons and one antineutron, and antihelium-4 which has the same two antiprotons but two antineutrons instead of one.
Scientists have successfully created antihelium-3 and -4 in the lab, but detecting it in the wild would mean that there might be large pools of anti-matter in the galaxy, like antistars or anticlouds.
Even though our sun is a pretty average star, it converts 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second. An antistar would need to have accumulated enough antimatter in order to start a similar fusion reaction. That would be a big deal. We’ve never seen so much antimatter in one place.
Here’s the good news: a space-based particle physics module called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has detected eight potential antihelium particles. Six were antihelium-3 and two were antihelium-4. Because it’s more complex, scientists think that antihelium-4 is highly likely to be evidence of antistars or anticlouds.
So far, though, scientists are still working to confirm the data and to rule out the possibility that the antihelium came from contamination or from other sources.
If we were to find evidence of antistars, it would change our understanding of what the universe is made of. Antimatter is relatively rare compared to matter, and we have yet to really figure out why. These new discoveries will help us get there.
You've probably heard the statistic that 100 companies are responsible for 70 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. With a statistic like that, how can individuals even hope to make a difference? Actually — lots of ways. After all, we're the ones using the gas from fossil fuel companies and eating beef produced by the agricultural industry. And today's guest has some easy, virtually painless tips on what we as individuals can do to help fight climate change. Paul Greenberg is a James Beard Award-winning author who's just come out with a new book called "The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint." He began by explaining why he wrote the book in the first place.
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If you're thinking, "Surely this doesn't apply to where I live," you'd be surprised! Paul reminded us that the power grid is all connected, and in most cases, you can probably find a way to route renewable power into your home. Again, that was Paul Greenberg, a James Beard Award-winning author and the author of "The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint." You can find a link to pick it up in the show notes.
Let’s recap today’s takeaways
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: The writer for today’s first story was Briana Brownell.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also an audio editor on today’s episode
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Make yourself some mac and cheese. No judgment! Then, join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!