Astronomy on Tap Leiden: Unveiling the mysteries of galaxies

Our next event will take place on Monday, February 17th at Galerie Café Leidse Lente at 20:00 CET!

Join us for a night all about unveiling the mysteries of galaxies, from our own home, the Milky Way, with the talk by Nienke van der Marel, to how dark matter pushes and pulls galaxies, with the talk by Pavel Mancera.

As always, there will be fun games with which you can test your knowledge and try to win cool science prizes!

———————————————————————- • Nienke van der Marel:“A, B and the Milky Way: what are the Oort constants?” Nienke van der Marel is an assistant professor at Leiden Observatory. In her daily life she studies how planets are forming in dusty disks around young stars, using telescopes like ALMA and, in the future, the ELT. However, she is also fascinated by the history of astronomy, and how the way of thinking about the Universe has changed over the decades with the development of new telescopes and instruments. One of such developments is the story of the Oort constants, which are painted as a mural on a wall on the Witte Singel, across the old Observatory. In this talk she will explain how Jan Oort came up with these equations, his struggles with understanding the Milky Way, and what the A and B actually represent.

• Pavel Mancera:“Weighing dark matter in galaxies” Pavel Mancera is an astronomer studying the formation and evolution of galaxies through the motions of their gas and stars. Originally from Mexico, he obtained his master’s degree and PhD cum laude at the University of Groningen. He is now a postdoctoral VENI Fellow at Leiden Observatory, studying the nature of dark matter and its role in shaping galaxies. Most of the mass in the Universe is invisible to our eyes. We call this mysterious mass dark matter since it does not emit light (and, being fair, also because we have little idea of what it is actually made of). Despite being unable to observe dark matter directly, we can infer its presence thanks to its gravitational pull on other objects we can see, such as galaxies. I will talk about the fascinating quest to weigh and understand dark matter using observations of the motion of stars and gas in nearby galaxies. Thanks to these observations, we can map the distribution of dark matter and shed light on a question that has puzzled us for about a century: What is dark matter made of?

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***Logistical information:***We start at 20:00 sharp, so please arrive earlier to enter the bar, save a seat, and grab a drink. We will be uploading a recording of the talks on ourYouTube channelafter the event.

Join us for an evening of astronomy and fun games where you can win cool science prizes! All ages and backgrounds are welcome!

For more information check out http://astronomyontap.nl/