June 12, 2016 ALP Monthly Meeting Report
by James Kevin Ty & Christopher Louie Lu
Images by James Kevin Ty and Christopher Louie Lu

Last June 12th, ALP held their monthly meeting at Exploreum at SM Mall of Asia. Members who attended were ALP President James Kevin Ty and son Kendrick Cole KC Ty; Secretary Christopher Louie Lu, wife Karren and daughter Frances Lu ;  Treasurer Andrew Ian Chan, PRO Edge Lat & daughter Trizha Elise Lat , director Shubhashish Banerjee and Justine Garcia.  Meeting started at around 3:30pm with ALP Secretary Christopher Louie Lu giving a lecture on dark matter entitled " Dark Doesn't Mean Empty."  We live on the planet Earth, which is part of the Solar System with our Sun as its Star, our Star is one of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy and Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies spread all across the universe. However, you may or may not know, but everything we see in the night sky only represents 4% of the whole universe. The rest is made up mostly 23% “Dark Matter” and 73% “Dark Energy”. On the onset, let me say that we are completely clueless of what these two things are only that dark matter and dark energy are part of our universe and that they both responsible for the formation and even maybe the demise of our universe.

Dark Matter was first detected by mathematical calculations made by Fritz Zwicky. He was calculating the velocities of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies when he realized that in the velocities that the galaxies are showing they should move away from each other; instead they are going around a common center of mass in a stable orbit. There seems additional mass that is not visible within the cluster that is keeping them together. Years later, Vera Rubin was observing how stars move around galaxies and she also found something unusual. Following Kepler’s 3rd law planetary motion (the father an object is from the center the slower its orbit), stars should be following the same principle. However, stars are not slowing down farther out from the center but they are actually moving faster than they should. Once again, the ‘missing mass’ problems seems to be in effect not only in large galaxy clusters but also effect stars within a galaxy. This is where astronomers could no longer ignore the reality of the data and since its invisible they called it ‘Dark Matter’.

We all know that our universe is expanding, but astronomers wanted to know how fast or slow are the universe is expanding. So set out to make these measurements using data collected from Type 1a Supernova. These supernovas became the cornerstone of what is to be a Nobel Prize winning measurement of the expansion of the universe. Prior to the measurement, astronomers have models that predict the expansion of the universe. A recollapsing universe where all matter, space/time and energy will be recollapsing in on itself in the future. A critical universe where the universe just continually expands and nothing else happens. And a coasting universe where our universe continually expands into infinity. However, this appears to be not the case, based on the data collected, it shows that we are living in a accelerating expanding universe. That there is a form of energy being injected into our universe making it expand even faster. And since, astronomers couldn’t see what’s causing this expansion they called it ‘Dark Energy’.
 

Afterwards, ALP President James Kevin Ty then inform members of the upcoming twin solar viewing activities hosted by SolarActivity Solar Festival on June 19 as well as Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project International SUNDay which will be held on June 26.  James and Edge then proceeded to discuss on the recent meeting with  NAST wherein ALP was chosen in the field of astronomy to coordinate with other science organization in helping NAST on its plan to broaden its role in science outreach in the Philippines.

Meeting ended at around 5:30pm.  Afterwards, some ALPers went to Yellow Cab Pizza to have their dinner there as well as continue discussing mixed topics while having dinner.

ALPers listen to ALP Secretary Christopher Louie Lu as he lectures on dark matter entitled " Dark Doesn't Mean Empty."	ALP Secretary Christopher Louie Lu lectures on dark matter.
ALP President James Kevin Ty announce the 2 upcoming solar viewing activities for the month of June.	ALP PRO Edge Lat  gives a run down on the recent meeting with NAST.
ALP President James Kevin Ty and PRO Edge Lat discuss in details on their meeting with other science organizations hosted by NAST.	Astro Dinner with ALPers at Yellow Cab Pizza