Student Example
  8th hour    
May 29, 2021 

Stars made of antimatter could exist in the Milky Way

There are about 100 billion stars in the milky way, But new studies show that 14 could

be anitmatter stars. Anitmatter is matter but with an opposite charge. For example: An

electron has a negative charge, but the anitmatter version of an electron (positron) has

a positive charge. When anitmatter comes into contact with regular matter, they

annihilate each other, releasing gamma rays and enormous amounts of energy in the

process. Normal stars fuse hydrogen into helium in their cores, so that means

antimatter stars would fuse anithydrogen into antihelium. But that begs the question,

where did the antihydrogen come from? “While physicists are reasonably certain that no

large pockets of antimatter exist in the universe, some theorists have suggested that

bits of the charge-reversed material could have collected into star-like objects,

essentially forming antistars.” (Mann) So how did these antistars get found? Anti Stars

would look fairly similar to regular stars so just searching for them by sight wouldn’t be

an option. As stated before when regular matter comes into contact with anitmatter they

annihilate each other releasing gamma rays and energy. By going through data from the

NASA fermi telescope, they found 14 small, compact objects that were emitting gamma

rays. These objects also didn’t show up in other star catalogs meaning that scientists

don’t know what they are. While they are not claiming that these are antistars, they are

even saying that they are more likely to be powerful pulsars and distant galactic nuclei.

Nonetheless, these 14 objects have sparked some very good questions and they could

change our understanding of antimatter. 

Vocabulary: 

Spectrometer: An apparatus used for recording and measuring spectra, especially as a

method of analysis.

Gamma rays: Penetrating electromagnetic radiation of a kind arising from the

radioactive decay of atomic nuclei

Cosmic rays: A highly energetic atomic nucleus or other particle traveling through

space at a speed approaching that of light.

MLA Citation

Mann, Adam. “Stars made of antimatter could exist in the Milky Way” 

www.space.com

 5 May. 2021

 https://www.space.com/potential-antistars-in-milky-way