Astronomy on Tap Rocket City – Dark Matter in Real Time!

Abstract: Invisible to telescopes, dark matter is thought to make up over 80% of all matter in the Universe but is still one of the most mysterious concepts in modern astronomy. We have begun a series of extreme-precision observing campaigns to measure the tiny accelerations of stars that live within the gravitational pull of our Galaxy. These accelerations are about 10 cm/s/decade, or about the speed of a crawling baby! Using these measurements, we can now probe the dark matter in our Galaxy with unprecedented precision, and I will discuss recent findings on a dark matter clump near our own Sun. Future measurements of dark matter clumps in our Galaxy may indeed reveal the true nature of dark matter.