Spaced Out

Over the 13.7 billion year history since the Big Bang, gravity has worked steadily to form the matter in the Universe into a cosmic web of filaments, voids, and clusters.  I will demonstrate how we use telescopes to trace the visible - and invisible - large-scale structure, and discuss how powerful supercomputing simulations can fill in the gaps in our knowledge of structure on the very largest scales.

How simulations can show us how the universe evolves and what we can do with them, and what areas we are still struggling to make models of.

In the era of big data astronomy, we have surveyed millions of galaxies across the sky. However, there simply aren't enough astronomers to classify these galaxies, and machine-based methods cannot match the level of detail and reliability achieved by human classifications. A large-scale project called Galaxy Zoo aimed to involve the public in astronomical research by utilizing citizen science to classify galaxies. Launched 10 years ago, I will discuss the highlights from its 50+ publications to date, and explain how you can get involved in the frontier of astronomical research with Galaxy Zoo.