How Galaxies were Cooked from the Primordial Soup

One of the great mysteries of the night sky is why it's mostly dark, only punctuated by pinpoints of light in the form of stars and galaxies. The lumpiness of today's universe is a fundamental characteristic that took billions of years to grow. Dr. Faber will review the prevailing "Cold Dark Matter" theory for galaxy formation and compare its predictions to present-day observations. It's a remarkable saga involving invisible dark energy and matter, the properties of the Universe an instant after it was born, cosmic expansion faster than light, and the creation of structure from quantum fluctuations. What's more, she will show that we probably understand this cosmic history better than we understand the origin of our own DNA!

Speaker: Dr. Sandra Faber, UC Santa Cruz