Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University and European institutions have used a computer model to recreate the evolution of the universe through a simulation.
The researchers are using the simulation to test theories about what makes up and influences the universe, according to 9News.
"Now we can get to grips with how stars and galaxies form and relate it to dark matter," said Richard Ellis from the California Institute of Technology. "You can make stars and galaxies that look like the real thing- but it is the dark matter that is calling the shots."
The computer model represents an area of space about 350 million light years across, which scientists say is big enough to represent the entire universe. Users can also "zoom in" to look at individual galaxies, CNET reported.
The researchers created more than 100,000 lines of code simulating the laws of physics, ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy. An image was made of the universe as it would have appeared about 12 million years after the Bing Bang. Our universe is able 13.8 billion years old.
If a regular laptop was used, the simulation would have taken thousands of years to run. With the help of supercomputers, the simulation was able to run in a few months, CNET reported.
The simulation shows 41.416 galaxies, which include elliptical galaxies that don't form stars, irregular galaxies, and disk galaxies, such as the Milky Way, CNN reported.
Dark matter represents almost 24 percent of the universe, and normal matter represents only 4.6 percent.
Dylan Nelson, study co-author at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said dark matter "dominates the gravitational pull of everything, especially on large scales."
"It's the backbone of the cosmic web."
Mark Vogelsberger, co-author of the study from MIT, said there are some flaws in the simulation, such as the early formation of low-mass galaxies, CNET reported. He added, however, that the simulation can be improved and still provides a good understanding of the universe.
"But there's some room for improvement in the future," Vogelsberger said in an interview. "It's not the successes of the model that puts us forward, it's definitely the failures because then we can learn what is wrong in our understanding and trying to come up with better theories."
The study was published in the journal Nature.
