Football-field-sized balloon takes flight over Antarctica in quest for dark matter answers

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A groundbreaking scientific experiment aimed at detecting dark matter in space launched from Antarctica on December 15, with significant contributions from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

The General AntiParticle Spectrometer (GAPS) experiment is suspended from a football-field-sized balloon approximately 24 miles above Antarctica to search for rare cosmic antimatter that could help unlock the mysteries of dark matter, one of physics' most perplexing phenomena.

Dark matter makes up about 85% of all the mass in our universe, yet we can't see it or directly detect it-we only know it exists because of how it affects things around it through gravity. Understanding dark matter would help us grasp what most of the universe is actually made of and potentially reveal fundamental new physics that could revolutionize our understanding of how everything works.

International partners work on mystery

UH Mānoa received $1.4 million, part of a larger NASA grant, in support of the project, and has been playing a leading role in developing the experiment, which is executed in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University, UCLA and Northeastern University, alongside international partners from Japan, Italy and China.

"This experiment puts Hawaiʻi at the forefront of one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics," said Philip von Doetinchem, project lead and UH Mānoa Department of Physics and Astronomy professor. "Our students and researchers at UH Mānoa are helping lead a quest to understand what makes up a large fraction of our universe, showing that groundbreaking science is happening right here in our islands."

The UH GAPS flight operations team is composed of Research Corporation of UH researcher Achim Stoessl, graduate student Grace Tytus and Doetinchem. In addition, Cory Gerrity was instrumental for on-campus detector development tasks during the pandemic, which was also supported by undergraduate student Hershel Weiner.

The experiment seeks to detect antiprotons and antideuterons (antimatter particles that are used in research to study dark matter and other phenomena), which scientists believe could provide crucial evidence about the nature of dark matter. While researchers have observed dark matter's gravitational effects, its fundamental properties remain unknown.

GAPS utilizes NASA balloon facilities similar to previous Antarctic experiments, including one that recently challenged standard physics models. The project builds on years of preparation, including extensive detector calibration work at UH Mānoa and integration testing at multiple NASA facilities.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy is housed in UH Mānoa's College of Natural Sciences.