From Galaxies and Stellar Streams to an Understanding of Dark Matter

There is more than five times as much dark matter in the universe as normal matter. Through gravity, we have observed evidence of dark matter’s existence for nearly 100 years, yet we do not know what the nature of dark matter is. In this talk, Sarah Pearson will take you on a journey through our universe’s history and explain how astrophysicists have used the distribution, movement, and growth of galaxies to map out how much dark matter there is in the universe. She will further reveal how stellar streams, which form as smaller gravitationally bound collections of stars are torn apart into distinct streaks on the sky, might hold the key to unravel the nature of dark matter.