The record-breaking beam is powered by a pulsar, a rapidly rotating collapsed star with a strong magnetic field.

With its tremendous scale, this beam may help explain the surprisingly large numbers of positrons, the antimatter counterparts to electrons, throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

... This result may provide new insight into the source of the Milky Way’s antimatter, which is similar to ordinary matter but with its electrical charges reversed. For example, a positron is the positively charged equivalent to the electron.