The same team succeeded last year in trapping dozens of anti-matter atoms and holding them in place for a fraction of a second, a world first at the time.
But that was not long enough for the excitable particles to settle into the stable "ground" state needed for precise measurements.
The new benchmark extended this storage time 5,000 fold, making it possible to carry out crucial experiments.
Scientists will now look for "violations" or discrepancies in something called the charge-parity-time reversal (CPT) symmetry.
Measurements of trapped antihydrogen are due to get underway shortly, and could yield results before the end of the year.
Make it so
I don't understand any of this... but there's a kind of nerdish "contact high", just reading about it...
