Darkness Surrounds Us: The Other 95% of the Universe

Original Air Date: Thursday, October 17 at 7 pm PT (10 pm ET, 0200 UTC)

All the material we can see is just a small fraction of the universe. The rest, a full 95 percent, is invisible and mysterious. These are the enigmatic dark matter and dark energy. While dark matter keeps things like galaxies together, dark energy acts in an opposite way – it pushes groups of galaxies apart and expands the universe itself. This event will discuss how astronomers are working to map the universe’s dark matter so they can see the effects of dark energy. The results could help us understand if the universe will expand at an accelerating rate forever.

Host: Preston Dyches

Speaker(s): Alina Kiessling — Astrophysicist, NASA-JPL Jason Rhodes — Astrophysicist, NASA-JPL