The Riddle of Anti-Matter PREVIEW

In 1080p. Upcoming episode of “Cosmic Journeys.” An international race is picking up speed… to see our universe for what it really is… and how it came to be.

According to standard theory, the universe emerged from the explosive contact between subatomic particles of opposite charge. Scientists are now focusing their most powerful technologies on an effort to figure out how this happened.

Modern theories of the universe hang on the question: how did matter as we know it survive? And what happened to its birth twin… its opposite… a mysterious substance known as anti-matter?

A crew of astronauts is making its way to a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida… they’ll enter the space shuttle Endeavour… for the 134th, and second to the last, flight of the space shuttle.

Little noticed in the publicity surrounding the close of this storied program… is the cargo bolted into Endeavour’s hold. It’s a science instrument that some hope will become one of the most important scientific contributions of human space flight.

It’s a kind of telescope… though it will not return dazzling images of cosmic realms long hidden from view… the distant corners of the universe… or the hidden structure of black holes and exploding stars.

At the heart of the AMS is a large superconducting magnet designed to operate in the pristine environment of space. The promise surrounding this device is that it will enable scientists to look at the universe in a completely new way.

Most telescopes are designed to capture photons… so-called neutral particles reflected or emitted by objects such as stars or galaxies. AMS will capture something different… exotic particles and atoms that are endowed with an electrical charge. Among these are a theoretical dark matter particle called a neutralino.

Then there are the strangelets… a type of quark that could amount to a whole new form of matter.

The instrument is tuned to capture “cosmic rays” at high energy… hurl