Physicists Just Created the Most Detailed Simulation of the Universe in History

[Judi Lynn]

By Tim Childers 8 hours ago



The centers of massive galaxy clusters are super hot (red), while bright structures show diffuse gas from the intergalactic medium shock heating at the boundary between cosmic voids and filaments.
(Image: © TNG Collaboration)

The formation of galaxies is a complex dance between matter and energy, occurring on a stage of cosmic proportions and spanning billions of years. How the diversity of structured and dynamic galaxies we observe today arose from the fiery chaos of the Big Bang remains one of the most difficult unsolved puzzles of cosmology.

In search of answers, an international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50. Their virtual universe, some 230 million light-years wide, contains tens of thousands of evolving galaxies with levels of detail previously seen only in single-galaxy models. The simulation tracked more than 20 billion particles representing dark matter, gases, stars and supermassive black holes, over a 13.8-billion-year period.

The unprecedented resolution and scale allowed the researchers to gather key insights into our own universe's past, revealing how various oddly shaped galaxies morphed themselves into being and how stellar explosions and black holes triggered this galactic evolution. Their results are published in two articles to be featured in the December 2019 issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

TNG50 is the latest simulation created by the IllustrisTNG Project, which aims to build a complete picture of how our universe evolved since the Big Bang by producing a large-scale universe without sacrificing the fine details of individual galaxies.

More:
https://www.space.com/most-detailed-universe-simulation.html?utm_source=notification

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Totally cool.

Thank you for posting.

You might also want to post this in the science group.

[Judi Lynn]

4. I was in a rush and didn't catch it. I meant to put it there. Thanks, PoindexterOglethorpe. n/t

[Nitram]

2. Very interesting.

Why does this have to do with Anthropology?

[dweller]

3. OMG...

it's Soylent Green !!!

and well, red

✌🏼