Berks

Faculty member awarded NSF grant for astronomy research

Ruth Daly, associate professor of physics, was awarded a three-year grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation in the amount of $147,097 to support her research in cosmology and astrophysics in June 2005. The research funded by this grant is related to what many consider to be the most exciting recent development in astronomy: the discovery that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate; that is, the universe is accelerating in its expansion. Daly's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation since 1993.

Daly explains her research by saying that when looking up at the stars at night, one views stars that lie close to the sun in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy is held together by gravity, and consists of about 100 billion stars, along with gas, dust and lots of dark matter. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. On the scale of the universe, each galaxy is considered to be a test particle. These test particles, or points, move apart from each other as the universe expands. Daly likens this to driving forward in a car, moving away from some fixed location.

As time goes by, the points are accelerating, moving away from each other at a faster and faster rate. Daly's work is related to devising new approaches and methods that can be applied to existing data so the data can be used to calculate how the acceleration of the universe varies with time. Daly also works on determining the properties of the "dark energy" that is causing the acceleration of the universe.

In addition, Daly has devised a new method to measure the acceleration of the universe using radio galaxies. This requires a detailed understanding of the physics of the largest, most powerful radio sources in the universe. These radio sources are powered by relativistic outflows from the regions around billion solar mass black holes located at the centers of large galaxies.

Undergraduate students at Berks have worked with Daly on these research projects. Results of her research projects are shared with the public at any one of her frequent public lectures. Daly also participates in national conferences where she frequently is a conference organizer and speaker.

Last Updated March 19, 2009

Contacts