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Astronomy Speaker's Night
2022-05-13
      20:30

DDO: Astronomy Speaker's Night - Hidden in Plain Sight: The Elusive Dark Matter (ONLINE)

Speaker: Dr. Nassim Bozorgnia

Join us, from the comfort of your home! This program will feature live-stream views from the DDO's 74-Inch telescope (Weather permitting). Explore breaking news from space and current research into what lies beyond our home planet! Each night, we’ll take a virtual tour of the DDO, hear from our speakers about their own amazing space research, and ask them all our questions about what they know and what they’re discovering. 

Our cosmos is full of a mysterious substance called "dark matter," which is invisible to us. The atoms in our bodies, planets, and stars make up only about 15% of the total matter content of the Universe. The elusive dark matter makes up the other 85%. All evidence for dark matter comes from its gravitational interaction with ordinary matter. However, the nature and distribution of dark matter in the Universe still remain unknown. A variety of experiments are currently operating around the globe and searching for the dark matter particle, with the hope of discovering dark matter in the coming years. In this talk, Dr. Bozorgnia will describe what we currently know about this mysterious type of matter, and how our current and future experiments and cosmological simulations will help unravel its secrets.

Nassim Bozorgnia is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York University. She obtained her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012, and has held postdoctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, GRAPPA Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at Durham University. Her research is in the field of astroparticle physics and focused on the dark matter problem. More specifically, she has been developing various strategies to significantly improve our knowledge of the dark matter distribution in our Galaxy, with the aim of studying its prospects for dark matter searches.

Only one registration per household is required. Deadline to register for this program is Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 4:00pm. Prior to the start of the program you will be emailed information on the virtual program links and any specific information relating to your program.

Who can attend: Ages 10 and up
Fee: $12.76
Registration: ActiveRH
Organized by: RASC, Toronto Centre

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