Large-Scale Structure Quotes

We became astronomers thinking we were studying the universe, and now we learn that we are just studying the 5 or 10 percent that is luminous.

Space and time may have a structure as intricate as the fauna of a rich ecosystem, but on a scale far larger than the horizon of our observations.

Dark matter and dark energy are two things we measure in the universe that are making things happen, and we have no idea what the cause is.

As an astrophysicist, my research work involves mapping dark matter, the elusive substance that accounts for about a quarter of our universe.

Everything we do understand about the universe - the periodic table of elements, Einstein's laws, Newton's laws, all of chemistry, all of biology - that's 4 percent of the universe. We got to the moon on the 4 percent we do understand. We landed on Mars on the 4 percent we do understand. So the day we crack the nut of the rest of that 95 percent... Oh my gosh.

The existence of dark matter and dark energy are inferred from observations! They are not theoretical constructs. Though invisible, both reveal their presence through the effects that they exert on motions of celestial bodies and in the case of dark matter - the bending of light as well.

All the stuff we've ever seen in the laboratory, all the kinds of particles and matter and energy, that only makes up 5 percent of our universe.

The realization that baryonic matter is only a trace component of the universe revealed our understanding of the cosmos as shockingly incomplete and was one of the milestones that ushered in the era of modern cosmology.

So important is this dark matter to our understanding of the size, shape, and ultimate fate of the universe that the search for it will very likely dominate astronomy for the next few decades.