Antimatter Weapons

The term antimatter conjures up images from Star Trek science fiction. It hardly sounds like it could be real. Unfortunately, it is a real possibility, and the potential for antimatter to wreak significant damage is ripe for the taking. For a long time, antimatter was thought to be theoretical until evidence of its existence was discovered. When cosmic rays collide with the Earth's atmosphere, they generate antimatter. Thunderstorms appear to produce positrons on occasion. The Large Hadron Collider can also generate matter and antimatter.

Antimatter is any material made up of what are known as antiparticles. According to the theory of antimatter, every particle in the cosmos is a mirror version of itself. It's the same item with a different charge. The most common example is that an electron has a negative charge while a positron has a positive charge. They both have the same mass, but they are diametrically opposed. When matter and antimatter collide, the effect is not only destructive, but perplexingly terrible. According to particle physicist Frank Close, destroying a kilogram of antimatter creates approximately 10 billion times the amount of energy as destroying a kilogram of dynamite. This is 1,000 times more energy than nuclear fission. So, if you could capture enough antimatter, you could probably destroy the entire world with no effort.