Scientists at the University of California at Riverside have created molecular positronium, in which two positrons -- antimatter siblings of electrons -- are bound together by electrons, in the laboratory, SAWF news reported.

They say as electrons and positrons have equal and opposite charges, they can become bound together by their electrical attraction, just as a positively charged proton is orbited by an electron in ordinary hydrogen atoms.

In theory, positronium atoms - electron-positron pairs - should also be able to pair up to form molecules, just as two hydrogen atoms form H2, they said.

However, as physicist Clifford Surko of the University of California in San Diego, said, the hybrid molecule positronium, denoted as Ps2, is peculiar stuff.

"Rather than being two well-defined atoms stuck together, the four particles "do a merry dance around each other in a fuzzy, lump-less soup," said Surko.

He, however, said these molecules are very hard to see because matter and antimatter annihilate each other, releasing a burst of energy in the form of gamma-rays.

When isolated in a vacuum, positronium atoms typically survive for less than a millionth of a second before they self-destruct, Sarko said.

During their study, David Cassidy and Allen Mills at the University of California at Riverside, found, that if they could capture enough positronium, some of the pseudo-atoms might combine before they vanish.

If that happened, the positronium molecules would release a characteristic gamma-ray signature when annihilation eventually occurred.

So the researchers fired a beam of positrons into porous silica glass, in an attempt to pick up electrons and make Ps2. They estimated a one-in-ten chance of two positronium atoms combining.

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