USF Team Wins Two NASA Grants to Explore the Origins of the Universe

“It’s very unusual for a research group to have two proposals granted in a single cycle,” said Xiaosheng Huang, professor of physics. “Out of 800 teams who had a proposal accepted, only four had two selected. Our team was amongst the four.”

The team will use Hubble to study dark matter — invisible matter in space that makes up approximately 27 percent of the universe (stars and planets make up five percent, by comparison). They will examine the gravitational lensing effects of both large galaxies, like the Milky Way, and dwarf galaxies, which are 10 to one thousand times smaller than the Milky Way and which are dominated by dark matter. Huang said the scientific community’s current understanding of the universe is based on the Lamba Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model, a mathematical model of the Big Bang theory.

The research on dwarf galaxies will shed light on whether that model is viable — or whether astrophysics is standing on the precipice of an entirely new way of understanding the universe.

“The ΛCDM model is foundational to our understanding of the universe. Whether our research shows the model is correct or incorrect, it’s a huge deal,” said Huang, who has received two previous NASA grants. “If it’s incorrect, it will tumble so many current ideas about the universe — it would be akin to people hundreds of years ago claiming the world is not flat.”

With the first grant, for $190,000, Huang is actively seeking a student participant. The team will direct the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph specific galaxies, through which they hope to confirm both conventional galaxies and the more elusive dwarf galaxies.

With the second grant, for $60,000, Huang and the team will use machine learning tools to plow through 30 years’ worth of Hubble images and data, with the goal also being to identify foreground and background galaxy lensing systems.

Physics alumni Jose Inchausti Reyes ’24 and Chris Storfer ’20 worked on both grant proposals and research. Storfer, who is completing a PhD at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, said, “This research helps expand our fundamental understanding of the universe. What we are doing here is just the beginning of that process. The Hubble Space Telescope provides unparalleled imaging of the strong lenses we’ve discovered, opening the door to an incredible range of science.”

Images produced by Hubble in the first two weeks of the project identified five confirmed systems of fore- and background galaxies, Huang said, and he marveled at the sharpness of the imagery compared to anything he’d be able to use on Earth.

“These images could lead to huge implications regarding our understanding of the universe,” Huang said, “including its moment of origin and its ultimate fate.”

Students interested in working on the research team should email Professor Huang at xhuang22@usfca.edu