UMKC’s Mark Brodwin to unlock the mysteries of the universe

• NASA
• A rendering of the Euclid telescope.

The secrets of our universe might be unlocked in the next few years over on Rockhill Road. Mark Brodwin, an assistant professor of astronomy and cosmology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has been picked by the European Space Agency to help study dark energy.

Brodwin will be one of 43 scientists and professors working on the Euclid project, a deep-space telescope expected to launch in 2020. The telescope will be used to locate and map as many as 2 billion galaxies. How that’s done is the real challenge. The hope is that Euclid will shine light on the invisible universe, the dark matter and dark energy that are thought to be the explanation for how our universe is growing. The telescope is being designed to measure the potential gravitational effects of dark matter and dark energy on visible entities such as stars. ESA decided to move forward with Euclid in October 2011, and NASA was announced as a partner this past January.