On Sept. 12, the Sunshine Coast chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada will welcome University of British Columbia associate professor Ludo Van Waerbeke as its guest speaker for its first meeting of the fall.
The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, located at 5714 Medusa Street in Sechelt.
Van Waerbeke is a senior fellow of the Canadian Institute for advanced Research in the Cosmology and Gravity Program. He will be speaking about dark matter and dark energy.
The study of the universe is stumbling upon two mysteries: it is made of five per cent of normal matter, 20 per cent of an unknown type of matter, dark matter and for 75 per cent of a puzzling form if energy, dark energy. Normal matter can be seen with traditional observational techniques that capture light at all possible wavelength with all kinds of telescopes.
Dark matter can be detected indirectly with the gravitational lensing effect. The effect of dark energy can only be measured on the expansion rate of the Universe. Using a combination of observations of normal and dark matter and dark energy, my research is a quest for a better understanding of the Universe and its fundamental laws, the large scale structures, galaxy clusters and galaxy formation.
For more details see: http://www.coastastronomy.ca/.
