Directions to the FORUM at MOORPARK COLLEGE

The Ventura County Astronomical Society (VCAS) will hold its monthly membership meeting on Friday, June 15, 2012 at 7:15 PM at the Forum Auditorium, on the campus of Moorpark College -- 7075 Campus Road, Moorpark CA 93021

The speaker will be Dr. Sherry Suyu, Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Tonight's session: "Hunting for Dark Matter and Dark Energy using Gravitational Lensing”

The enormous sea of stars and galaxies which fills a clear night sky and all the Earthly matter that we see account for only 4% of the energy budget of the Universe.

About 26% of the energy content is in the form of “dark matter” that astronomers have so far indirectly detected through its gravitational interaction with the luminous matter. The remaining 70% is a mysterious form of vacuum energy, dubbed “dark energy”, that is used to explain the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

The fate of our Universe is determined by its content, so understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy is highly desirable. In this presentation, Dr. Suyu will show how gravitational lensing, a phenomenon where light is bent around massive objects, probes both dark matter and dark energy.

Dr. Suyu is a Canadian Taiwanese and first came to California in 2002 to attend graduate school in Pasadena (Caltech). After completing her PhD thesis in 2007, she went to Germany for three years to work as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bonn. Since 2010, Dr. Suyu has been a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The public is invited to attend and learn the enjoyment of amateur astronomy with these educational and enjoyable speakers.