Ever since the standard model was first created, depicting the interactions between all forms of matter, physicists who created it, and all those who came afterwards, drew attention to one of its major drawbacks, namely that it erased us all from existence. That is to say, it holds that matter and antimatter annihilate each other under any circumstances. And holding that equal amounts of both types were created at the beginning of the Universe, they should have both disappeared within a second or so, and the only things that would now populate the vastness of space would be some forms of light.

Still, just to state the obvious, we are here, and so is our planet, the solar system, the galaxy, countless other galaxies, black holes, stellar dust, gas pulsars, quasars, and everything else you could think of. For quite some time now, physicists have been trying to explain exactly how it is that we exist despite the fact that the theory clearly states that we shouldn't be here. In any other circumstance, scientists would say that the hypothesis is wrong, to begin with, but the problem is that the standard model offers a perfect explanation of the world around us, except for this one, little, tiny “detail.”

Tests conducted in some of the world's largest particle accelerators may offer a possible explanation to this seemingly impossible state of affairs. They have proven that certain types of subatomic particles turn into their antiparticles slightly more than the opposite holds true. This creates small imbalances between the amounts of particles and antiparticles, and could hint at the fact that similar imbalances at the onset of the Universe may have allowed for more matter to form than antimatter.

Another explanation could be that, somehow, matter and antimatter escaped each other's fatal grasp after the Big Bang, and have each accumulated in their own corners of the Universe. That is to say, some physicists believe that, somewhere out there, a Universe completely opposite to our own may exist, formed of antimatter stars, antimatter galaxies, and even anti-life. “It's not such a daft idea. You might initially have a little extra matter over here and a little extra antimatter somewhere else,” University of Oxford Particle Physicist Frank Close explained, as quoted by NewScientist.