Dark Matter Domination

Dark matter is everywhere.  There is way more of it in the universe than the matter we are made of and interact with.  Yet for the sheer amount of it, we have no way of determining what exactly it is.  It’s as if we didn’t know what air was, and even though we could see it and breathe it, we couldn’t measure it.  The most tantalizing part about dark matter is that we can see the gravitational effect it has, and so we can determine how much of it there has to be.  Some places in the universe have more dark matter than...

When Galaxies Collide

Honestly this could be the name of a new TV show, similar to ‘when buildings collapse,’ or ‘here’s what Kim Kardashian did today.’ I’ll take the colliding galaxies, simply because they can hold my attention longer.  Galaxy collisions are some of the most massive and long term events in the universe.  The result is the formation of billions of stars, the change in orbit of Billions more, and the complete restructuring of a galaxy.  Since we see a snapshot of the Universe whenever we look at a single galaxy, we tend to see collisions happening at all stages of the...