1. Wonders of the Universe UUCG July 24, 2016 Dennis Hands

2. Recent discoveries 1.Expansion of the Universe is accelerating faster than we thought. 2.Gravity waves can be detected 3.Kepler mission has discovered evidence of about 7,000 planets.

3. Our Solar system 1

4. In the Milky Way Galaxy

5. In the Local Group

6. Hercules Cluster of Galaxies Credit: Dr. Victor Andersen ( University of Alabama, KPNO) Courtesy W. Keel

7. In the Virgo Super Cluster

8. Image courtesy of G. L. Bryan, M. L. Norman, UIUC, NCSA, GC3 Computer model of a section of the Observable Universe

9. Expansion of the Universe is accelerating faster than we thought.

10. What is Dark Energy?

11. Gravity Waves detected! 2

12. 30-solar-mass black holes

13. Our Milky Way

14. NGC 6744 Credit: ESO

16. Stars near the center of our galaxy Move the cursor over the image above to hyperlink to animation on YouTube

17. Plot of stars orbiting the center of the galaxy.

18. Evolution of a stellar mass black hole

19. Gravity waves are detected and we discover a new class of black hole.

20. Which came first?

21. 3 Kepler Space Telescope

22. Kepler space telescope has discovered evidence of about 7,000 planets.

24. …almost 100 of them near Earth-size.

25. Our Solar system 12% of the planets in our system have communicating life.

26. Where’s home?

27. Mysteries 1.What is making the expansion of the universe accelerate? 2.Which came first, our Super- Massive Black Hole or the disk of stars, gas and dust of our galaxy? 3.Where is ET?

28. Wonders of the Universe UUCG