August 25, 2023 8-10PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: Galaxy Clusters Collide: The Most Energetic Events since the Big Bang
Lecturer: Emily Silich
Position: PhD Candidate
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
Galaxies, like our own Milky Way, don’t tend to live in isolation. When we scan our telescopes across the sky, we don’t see a random scattering of galaxies throughout space. Instead, we see many dense regions where hundreds to thousands of galaxies exist in close proximity to each other, known as galaxy clusters. These clusters, surrounded by dark matter and extremely hot gas, are the largest and most massive objects in the universe bound together by their own gravity. So, what happens when two of these galaxy clusters collide? Some of the most energetic events in the universe — second only to the Big Bang itself! I’ll discuss how studying these powerful collisions can answer exciting questions, from how structures in the universe form to the nature of dark matter itself.