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Where does the antimatter in our galaxy come from?

We know there is antimatter within the Milky Way because of the telltale gamma radiation produced when electrons collide with their antiparticles. But where these particles, called positrons, come from is less well understood.

Now astronomer Gerry Skinner of the University of Maryland, College Park, and colleagues say that neutron stars and black holes might be leaking positrons into space (). They infer this from their observations of the telltale gamma-ray emissions, which turn out to be stronger on one side of the galaxy. This region also holds more of a certain kind of binary star, in which a neutron star or a black hole is consuming gas from an ordinary stellar companion.

The team made their measurements using Integral, the European Space Agency鈥檚 orbiting gamma-ray observatory.