To make the antiprotons, the team took some of the protons normally used to feed CERN's nearby Large Hadron Collider, smashed them into metal targets, and captured the byproducts. (Related: 'Proton Smaller Than Thought-May Rewrite Laws of Physics.') This formed atoms of antihydrogen, the simplest antimatter element-a feat first achieved in 2002 at CERN. 'It's a relief to have this step in hand.'ДЇor the new experiments, the team used CERN's ALPHA experiment, a tangle of corrugated pipes, electromagnetic 'bottles,' and other equipment.ДЇirst, scientists had to create antiprotons and antielectrons, or positrons, and get them to bond. 'This is the next step, and it's a key next step' toward solving that central mystery, said Surko, who did not participate in the research. (Read about a new material that may help explain why matter and antimatter are out of balance.)Д¬liff Surko, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego, called the trapping of antimatter atoms 'a big deal.' The unprecedented trapping of antimatter atoms for study is a key step toward understanding why nature seems to abhor antimatter. 'It's a central mystery in physics,' said Joel Fajans, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-authored the new study, published today in the journal Nature. That's because, even though matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts during the big bang, the universe we know is made almost entirely of matter. Yet for all the similarities, scientists think matter and antimatter must differ in some other fundamental way. Whenever the matter and antimatter meet, they self-annihilate in a shower of pure energy. Theories predict that antimatter particles and matter particles have opposite electrical charges but are otherwise nearly identical. (Related: 'Scientists Ponder Universe's Missing Antimatter.') (See 'Antimatter-Rocket Plan Fuels Hope for Star Trek Tech.')Д«ut the feat, undertaken a couple of months ago at the Geneva, Switzerland-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), paves the way to the potential solution of a fundamental cosmic conundrum. Though the achievement is 'a big deal,' it doesn't mean the antimatter bombs and engines of science fiction will be igniting anytime soon, experts say. For the first time, scientists have trapped antimatter atoms-mysterious, oppositely charged versions of ordinary atoms-a new study says.