The primary physics task of STAR is to study the formation and characteristics of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter believed to exist at sufficiently high energy densities. Detecting and understanding the QGP allows us to understand better the universe in the moments after the Big Bang, where the symmetries (and lack of symmetries) of our surroundings were put into motion.

STAR is composed of 56 institutions from 11 countries, with a total of 572 collaborators. A variety of personnel participate in the collaboration, including students, university faculty and staff, national laboratory staff, and engineers.