Antimatter is material composed of the antiparticle partners of ordinary matter. When antimatter meets with matter, they quickly annihilate each other to form a burst of energy in the form of gamma-rays.
Scientists have known since the early 1970s that the inner parts of the Milky Way galaxy are a strong source of gamma-rays, indicating the existence of antimatter, but there had been no settled view on where the antimatter came from.
Researchers from Australian National University showed that the cause was a series of weak supernova explosions over millions of years, each created by the convergence of two white dwarfs which are ultra-compact remnants of stars no larger than two Suns.
Researchers had ruled out the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way and the still-mysterious dark matter as being the sources of the antimatter.
The antimatter came from a system where two white dwarfs form a binary system and collide with each other.
The smaller of the binary stars loses mass to the larger star and ends its life as a helium white dwarf, while the larger star ends as a carbon-oxygen white dwarf.
Once they come too close the carbon-oxygen white dwarf rips apart the companion star whose helium quickly forms a dense shell covering the bigger star, leading to a thermonuclear supernova that is the source of the antimatter.
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