By Katherine Freese
The ordinary atoms that make up the known universe, from our bodies and the air we breathe to the planets and stars, constitute only 5 percent of all matter and energy in the cosmos. The remaining 95 percent is made up of a recipe of 25-percent dark matter and 70-percent dark energy, both nonluminous components whose nature remains a mystery. Katherine Freese will recount the stories of the dark matter puzzle, starting with the discoveries of visionary scientists from the 1930s who first proposed its existence, to Vera Rubin in the 1970s whose observations conclusively showed its dominance in galaxies, to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists contend that dark matter most likely consists of new fundamental particles; the best candidates include weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and axions. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second without us even realizing it, yet their gravitational pull is capable of whirling stars and gas at breakneck speeds around the centers of galaxies, and bending light from distant bright objects. This talk will overview this cosmic cocktail, including the evidence for the existence of dark matter in galaxies. Many cosmologists believe we are on the verge of solving this mystery and this talk will provide the foundation needed to fully fathom this epochal moment in humankind's quest to understand the universe.
Register for the event: https://msu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lgqsPHxYQwil6W4neTRlKA
All Advanced Studies Gateway events are free and open to the public https://frib.msu.edu/gateway/index.html

Location:	online
Price:	free
Sponsor:	public
Contact:	Bob Patterer, Chief of Staff events@frib.msu.edu (517) 908-7573
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