Name: Professor Stephen Zepf

Department: Physics and Astronomy

Type of research: How galaxies are formed

Date of research: Zepf has been studying the origin of galaxies for about 20 years, but his current projects using the Southern Astrophysical Research, or SOAR, Telescope began about a year ago.

Basics of the project: "We look at star clusters and galaxies to learn about how the whole galaxy formed," Zepf said.

Zepf looks at the different wavelengths of the light emitted from star clusters.

In this way, he can determine how old the clusters are and what elements are included in their compositions, which helps him determine the galaxy's age.

Using Internet connections and computer programming, Zepf is able to study images of the galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SOAR Telescope.

The SOAR Telescope — located at an altitude of 9,000 feet on a mountain in Chile — is an MSU project in conjunction with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and Brazil.

Two postdoctoral fellows, one graduate student and one undergraduate student assist Zepf in his research.

Social impact of research: "It answers the basic questions of the universe on a big scale," Zepf said.

Grants and funding: The National Science Foundation and NASA fund the project, which costs several thousand dollars per year. Zepf said he could not give an exact figure because the funding varies from year to year.