8 Times Science Did The Impossible

5. Making Antimatter

Antimatter, if we could harness its power, could well be the answer to all of our energy needs. Unfortunately, there isn't all that much of it lying around, so scientists have set about trying to create it in a lab - and they're doing well.

When antimatter, which as the name suggests, is the opposite of matter, meets its matter counterpart, the two annihilate one another and release massive amounts of energy. If we can somehow find a way to harness that energy to power the engines and starships of the future, we could finally move out of the fossil-fuel backwaters and get on with being a proper civilisation.

The problem with antimatter is that it's difficult to produce and even harder to store. This is largely due to its aforementioned propensity for annihilating itself when coming into contact with matter.

However, a team of scientists from multiple countries, collectively known as ALPHA, managed to produce, trap and store antimatter for the first time back in 2010 and have since only been improving the technology, reportedly managing to store antihydrogen for as long as 16 minutes.

Hey, it might not be long enough to get us to Mars (or even the next town) just yet, but it at least proves that it is possible, which is always the biggest step in science.