Astronomy Tea Talk

Spinning galaxies present us with one of the few observable connections between baryons and dark matter in the universe. I will explain how our recent measurements of galaxy rotation curves over two-thirds of the age of the universe reveal how galaxies have been evolving, using deep exposures from both Keck and the Hubble Space Telescope. Specifically, evolution in the stellar mass Tully-Fisher relation (our most directly observable stellar-to-halo mass relation), challenges some of our favored models of how mass has been assembling since the early formation of galaxies.