https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00950-w Skip to main content Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Advertisement Advertisement Nature * View all journals * Search * Log in * Content Explore content * About the journal * Publish with us * Subscribe * Sign up for alerts * RSS feed 1. nature 2. news 3. article * NEWS * 24 March 2026 Antimatter has been transported for the first time ever -- in the back of CERN's truck Physicists have succeeded for the first time in transporting the most expensive and most volatile substance on Earth: antimatter. By * Elizabeth Gibney 1. Elizabeth Gibney View author publications Search author on: PubMed Google Scholar * Email * Bluesky * Facebook * LinkedIn * Reddit * Whatsapp * X A CERN truck drives down a road as it transports a trap filled with antiprotons. Scientists successfully transported 92 antiprotons in a truck around CERN, Europe's particle physics laboratory, using specialized bottles which prevent contact with matter.Credit: CERN Antimatter is matter's equal and opposite. If the two meet, they annihilate each other, turning entirely into energy. This makes it incredibly difficult to store or move antimatter. On 24 March, a team at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, transported 92 antiprotons in a specially designed bottle that traps the particles using magnetic fields. The bottle travelled on the back of a truck, taking a 30-minute journey around the lab's site. The experiment's ultimate goal is to take the antiparticles to a location free of experimental noise, where antiprotons can be studied with greater precision than is possible in the CERN 'antimatter factory' where they are created. CERN is the only place in the world that produces usable quantities of antiprotons. Many staff members turned out with their mobile-phone cameras to capture the truck as it travelled more than 8 kilometres around the site, reaching a maximum speed of 42 kilometres per hour. "It is something humanity has never done before, it is historic," says team member Stefan Ulmer, a physicist at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHU) in Germany. "We bought a lot of champagne, and we invited the entire antimatter community to celebrate with us today." [d41586-026] How to transport antimatter -- stick it on the back of a van Antimatter can be used to study other phenomena, such as the structure of radioactive nuclei, or researched itself to unravel some of the Universe's deepest mysteries. Physicists who created the antimatter factory more than 30 years ago dreamed that someday it might be possible to transport the material, says Christian Smorra, a physicist at the HHU who led the project. "Now it's finally possible." "This is a great technological achievement," says Tara Shears, a physicist at the University of Liverpool, UK. Antimatter is the most fragile type of matter there is, so storing it, let alone driving it around CERN, is "a technological marvel", she says. "I love the idea of CERN becoming the Deliveroo [a food-delivery company] of antimatter," she adds. Antimatter Deliveroo Antiparticles are like their ordinary counterparts, except with their charge and magnetic properties reversed. Although matter is abundant, antimatter occurs naturally only very rarely. No one knows why this disparity exists, when both should have been created in equal amounts during the Big Bang. CERN makes antimatter by colliding beams of protons into a dense metal, then using electric and magnetic fields to slow and capture the antiprotons that emerge. Most particles are lost in the painstaking process. [d41586-026] Simulation of matter-antimatter creation on quantum platforms Enjoying our latest content? Log in or create an account to continue * Access the most recent journalism from Nature's award-winning team * Explore the latest features & opinion covering groundbreaking research Access through your institution or Sign in or create an account # Continue with Google # Continue with ORCiD doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00950-w Reprints and permissions Related Articles * [d41586-026] Cracking the antimatter mystery: A three minute guide * [d41586-026] Antimatter falls down, not up: CERN experiment confirms theory * [d41586-026] Matter and antimatter scrutinized * [d41586-026] Physicists plan antimatter's first outing -- in a van * [d41586-026] Read the paper: The asymmetry of antimatter in the proton * [d41586-026] Antimatter in the proton is more down than up * [d41586-026] Antimatter cooled by laser light * [d41586-026] Mirror symmetry validated for proton and its antimatter twin Subjects * Particle physics * Physics Latest on: * Particle physics * Physics * [d41586-026] Physics at risk: UK science leader on what's wrong with the latest funding cuts News Q&A 11 MAR 26 * [d41586-026] Particle collisions cast light on how matter forms from seemingly empty space News & Views 04 FEB 26 * [41586_2025] Measuring spin correlation between quarks during QCD confinement Article 04 FEB 26 * [d41586-026] Long-distance quantum link generates entanglement faster than it is lost News & Views 25 MAR 26 * [41586_2026] Structural basis of supercoiling-induced CRISPR-Cas9 off-target activity Article 25 MAR 26 * [d41586-026] Elusive 'nuclear clocks' tick closer to reality -- after decades in the making News 20 MAR 26 Nature Careers Jobs * Postdoctoral Fellow A postdoctoral fellow position is available at NIH for translational research on neural mechanisms of frustration/ irritability in mice and humans Bethesda, Maryland (US) National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health [] * Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neural Engineering Section, Behavioral Neuroscience Research Branch The Intramural Research Program (IRP), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Bethesda, Maryland National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) [] * Junior Professorship (W1) for ,,Public Child Mental Health" (f/m/d The Medical Faculty Mannheim of Heidelberg University invites applications for the Junior Professorship (W1) for "Public Child Mental Health" (f/... 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New York City, New York (US) Springer Nature Ltd [] Related Articles * [d41586-026] Cracking the antimatter mystery: A three minute guide * [d41586-026] Antimatter falls down, not up: CERN experiment confirms theory * [d41586-026] Matter and antimatter scrutinized * [d41586-026] Physicists plan antimatter's first outing -- in a van * [d41586-026] Read the paper: The asymmetry of antimatter in the proton * [d41586-026] Antimatter in the proton is more down than up * [d41586-026] Antimatter cooled by laser light * [d41586-026] Mirror symmetry validated for proton and its antimatter twin Subjects * Particle physics * Physics Advertisement Sign up to Nature Briefing An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, delivered to your inbox every weekday. Email address [ ] [ ] Yes! Sign me up to receive the daily Nature Briefing email. I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Nature and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. 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