How did the universe form and evolve?
What is it made of?
Dark matter, dark energy, what are these things?
My name is Mike Hudson, I'm a professor at
the University of Waterloo in the Department
of Physics and Astronomy.
I'm an astronomer myself, my area of study
in particular is cosmology and galaxy formation.
Cosmology is the study of the universe as
a whole.
What is the universe made of?
We think that 95% of the universe is dark.
It's two mysterious things, dark matter, and
dark energy.
We would like to find out more about what
in particular dark matter is.
How can we study it?
Specifically, one of the techniques I use
to study dark matter is through observations
of a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
Gravitational lensing was predicted by Albert
Einstein.
Its the distortion of light rays as they pass
from a distant galaxy towards us, they're
distorted by the matter that's in front of
them.
This amazing technique allows us to actually
see dark matter for the first time.
One of the projects I'm working on at the
moment is called WFIRST.
This is a flagship NASA satellite to be launched
in the near future.
This will be NASA's successor to the Hubble
telescope and it will give us the most detailed
maps of dark matter that have ever been made.
In the Physics and Astronomy department we
have a great group of faculty, post docs and
graduate students.
Together we're studying some of the most important
questions in the universe.
How did the universe form and evolve?
What is it made of?
Dark matter, dark energy, what are these things?
Stars and planets, where do they come from?
How are planets like our own earth formed
and where are they in the universe?
These are critical questions in cosmology.
