Brighton Astro: The Dark Universe

Our speaker this month is Dr David Bacon from the University of Portsmouth.

The Universe is a most peculiar place, apparently full of several ‘materials’ which we cannot directly see: dark matter and dark energy. In this talk, David will describe the current cosmological observations that have led to this conclusion, and discuss the increasingly baffling behaviour of this dark sector of the Universe.

David Bacon is Director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth. He is a cosmologist who operates at the interface between observations and theories, particularly interested in dark energy, gravitational lensing, the clustering of galaxies, and tests of the theory of gravity.

David carried out his doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, then moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Research Fellow. He continued his career as a Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, where he has happily spent the last 20 years on research, teaching, and eventually leadership.

If you sign up via meetup but can no longer attend, please update your status to say that you are no longer attending so that someone on the waiting list gets a place. Please only come along if you’ve signed up, as we’re limited on space so won’t be able to fit anyone else in.

Attendance is free, but we would be grateful if those of you who are able to could donate a few pounds to help cover the cost of hiring this event space. We will have a card reader and a money box you can drop your donations in on the night. We also have a bank account you can donate to electronically. Brighton Astro is inclusive and welcomes everybody.