A Husnock warship firing a beam of jacketed antiprotons and positrons.
An antiproton is the antimatter counterpart of a proton. On Earth, the antiproton's existence was theorized in the 1930s, and the particle itself was discovered in 1955, a Nobel prize-winning achievement.
A beam of pure antiprotons is an incredibly destructive weapon. Such a weapon was used by the so-called "doomsday machine" to destroy planets. The Jem'Hadar also use antiproton beams to detect cloaked ships. (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine", DS9: "The Search, Part I") Yet it can also be used as an effective treatment for reversing Warp 10-induced hyper-evolution. (VOY: "Threshold")
The Delta Raga warship used jacketed beams of antiprotons and positrons as its main weapon and fired beams with a firepower of forty megawatts and later four hundred gigawatts at the USS Enterprise-D. (TNG: "The Survivors")
The Crystalline entity leaves behind a trail of antiprotons therby making it possible to track the creature. (TNG: "Silicon Avatar")
Romulan disruptors leave a characteristic trace of residual antiprotons, which can be used to date when the weapon was fired. (TNG: "Face of the Enemy")
The deflector dish of Sovereign class starships was charged with antiprotons. (Star Trek: First Contact)
The use of a cloaking device was also found to leave a trace of residual antiprotons, which can be used to trace a cloaked ship. The Scimitar was equipped with an advanced cloaking that left no such trace of residual antiprotons. (Star Trek: Nemesis)
External links
- Antiproton at Wikipedia