Dr. Marcus Seigar, assistant professor of physic and astronomy at UALR, will be the keynote speaker at the 93rd meeting of the Arkansas Academy of Science Friday and Saturday, April 3 and 4, at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville.

Seigar will discuss his research into dark matter in spiral galaxies.

Dark matter is required in astronomy to explain how galaxies form and to explain the speeds of stars in their orbits around galaxies. Stars move so quickly, that is there was no dark matter, all the stars in a galaxy would completely fly apart. The dark matter is required to keep all the stars gravitationally bound, otherwise galaxies would not exist.

The Arkansas Academy of Science meets every year in early April. This year is the 93rd meeting of the Academy. The 94th meeting of the Academy will take place at UALR.