A team of Mexican astrophysicists from the Institute of Astronomy (IA) at UNAM and the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí is actively participating in NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope project. The group will develop artificial intelligence-based tools to analyze astronomical images and unravel one of the cosmos’s greatest mysteries: dark matter
Artificial Intelligence for Mapping Invisible Matter
Led by researcher Octavio Valenzuela Tijerino, the Mexican group is collaborating on the research project “The Roman Data Challenge for Dark Matter Substructure with Galaxy-Galaxy Strong Gravitational Lenses”.
The main objective is to use AI algorithms to analyze the phenomenon of gravitational lensing—the distortions that the mass of a galaxy or cluster produces in spacetime, bending the light from objects located behind it.
By measuring the distortion of the arcs and rings of light formed by this effect, researchers can “weigh” space and map the distribution of dark matter on small scales—an invisible substance that makes up about 85% of all matter in the universe.
“We receive images with distortion and multiple images… but we are able to infer the distribution of matter that distorted space.”
— Regina Ramírez Ibáñez, a master’s student in astrophysics at UNAM.
Roman vs. Hubble: A View 100 Times Wider
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope—named in honor of NASA’s first chief astronomer and known as the “mother of Hubble”—is equipped with the Wide Field Instrument (WFI).
Feature Details
Field of view ~100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope in a single exposure.
Measurement capability It will measure the light from more than one billion galaxies.
Advanced techniques Use of a coronagraph to block starlight and detect exoplanets.
International synergy It will complement observations from the Euclid satellite and the Rubin Observatory.
As explained by José Antonio de Diego Onsurbe, a researcher at the IA at UNAM, the combination of Hubble’s resolution with Roman’s wide field of view will make it possible to move from studying isolated objects to comparing entire populations of galaxies, stars, and exoplanetary systems in a uniform manner.
