MessageToEagle.com - Observing birth and evolution of galaxy is now possible!
Using Odyssey, Harvard’s largest supercomputer, astrophysicists have developed a new
computational approach that can accurately map the birth and evolution of thousands of galaxies
over billions of years.
It can also help build a universe from scratch that brims with galaxies.
"We've created the full variety of galaxies we see in the local universe," said Mark Vogelsberger from
Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics (CFA), which worked with Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical
Studies (HITS) (Germany) on the project.
Our cosmic neighbourhood is full of magnificent spiral galaxies like Andromeda, Pinwheel and Whirlpool.
Spirals are common, but previous simulations had trouble creating them.
Instead, they produced lots of blobby galaxies clumped into balls, without the broad disks and outstretched
arms of a typical spiral, said Vogelsberger, according to a CFA and HITS statement.
Arepo, a new software created by Volker Springel of HITS, contributed with a perfect solution.
It generates a full-fledged simulation of the universe, taking as input only the observed afterglow of the Big Bang
and evolving forward 14 billion years.
"We took all the advantages of previous codes and removed the disadvantages," explained Springel.
Our simulations improve over previous ones as much as the Giant Magellan Telescope will improve upon
any telescope that exists now," said Debora Sijacki, CfA astrophysicist.
This still frame is taken from the Arepo-generated animation. It demonstrates Arepo's key ability to
produce realistic spiral galaxies. Previous simulations tended to yield bloblike galaxies lacking distinct spiral structure.
Credit: CfA/UCSD/HITS/M. Vogelsberger (CfA) and V. Springel (HITS)
One of Arepo's key advantages is the geometry it uses. Previous simulations divided space into a
bunch of cubes of fixed sizes and shapes.
Arepo uses a grid that flexes and moves in space to match the motions of the underlying gas, stars, dark matter, and dark energy.
Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be the world's largest telescope when it will be completed.
The telescope will be finished by the end of this decade. Credits: gmto.org
Simulations on Harvard's Odyssey high-performance supercomputer used 1,024 processor cores.
This fast machine allowed scientists to compress 14 billion years into a few months, an endeavour that
would have kept a desktop computer busy for hundreds of years.
The team has future goals including simulating much larger volumes of the universe, which will lead to creating
the largest and most realistic model of the universe ever made.
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