This virtual universe simulation is an amazing display of cosmic evolution starting from its primordial chemical soup up to the creation of life. The simulation generates breathtaking images of whirling galaxies, gas bubbles, supernova explosions, dark matter and black holes.
Before now, other attempts to do the same failed, because they were only able to focus on part of the universe or had inadequate resolution. This new simulation, called Illustris, has finally succeeded in creating a high fidelity simulation of amazing proportions.
The massive project involved 12 billion resolution elements in a cube of 106.5 megaparsecs a side. According to Discovery News, the undertaking was the result of
“Three months of computer number-crunching, combining 8,000 CPUs all running in parallel, modeling our evolving universe. If the same simulation was carried out on your office desktop computer, the simulation would take 2,000 years to recreate.”
The 3-D simulation begins in the early years of the universe 12 billion years ago, and continues until the present day. The final cube of simulated space contains 41,000 galaxies.
According to Sci-news, Illustris yields,
“A realistic mix of spiral galaxies like the Milky Way and football-shaped elliptical galaxies. It also recreated large-scale structures like galaxy clusters and the bubbles and voids of the cosmic web. On the small scale, it accurately recreated the chemistries of individual galaxies.”
Dr Mark Vogelsberger of MIT/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was leader of the scientific team said,
“Until now, no single simulation was able to reproduce the universe on both large and small scales simultaneously.”
The simulation is one of the most complicated computer models ever created and is a crucial means to test theories about the development of the universe.
“One of the simulation’s insights,” says Science News, “is the role that supermassive black holes must have played in shaping galaxies. As the behemoths swallow gas, they are known to belch out energetic gas bubbles that span hundreds of thousands of light-years. Without these eruptions, the universe would look much different; galaxies would be larger, for example.”
The model for the simulation is based exclusively on equations worked out as a results of decades of astronomical observations. The Guardian quotes Dr Vogelsberger over its importance.
“We have this problem in astrophysics that we can’t go and do experiments in the lab to test our theories. The only way to test them is to compare our models with the best observations out there.”
Discovery News comments that,
“The most striking thing about this virtual universe is its uncanny resemblance to observations made by today’s observatories. The recreation of the array of galaxies we see deep in the furthest-most reaches of the universe form in strikingly familiar shapes and sizes.”
The study’s co-author, Dr Shy Genel described Illustris as
“Like a time machine. We can go forward and backward in time. We can pause the simulation and zoom into a single galaxy or galaxy cluster to see what’s really going on.”
There are some anomalies between astronomical observations and the simulation, but other scientists say this will only help in clarifying theories and deepening the debate over the true history of the universe.
Michael Boylan-Kolchin, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, said,
“I’m impressed at their audacity and that they were able to make it work. This will help us with a number of open questions. What were the first galaxies in the universe like? Where are their remnants today? The better the simulations, the better we can answer these questions.”
The paper was published recently in the journal Nature.
