Researchers from MIT, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (Cfa), and Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies in Germany have successfully created the first realistic virtual universe through a computer simulation dubbed "Illustris."
MIT was not the first to attempt creating a virtual universe; others tried before them, but none were successful, resulting in programs with poor resolution that only covered a small part of the universe. MIT has become the first to incorporate sophisticated computer program power and complex physics to achieve a realistic visual of the universe.
"Until now, no single simulation was able to reproduce the universe on both large and small scales simultaneously," said lead author and theoretical astrophysicist Mark Vogelsberger of MIT in a press release.
Illustris presented the evolution of the universe in 12 billion 3-D pixels, providing viewers with a clearer visual of dark and normal matter. The project was completed in late 2013, after five years of collaborative efforts. It uses 8,000 CPUs for a three-month "run time."
The computer simulation goes as far as 12 million years after the Big Bang. The astronomers calculated that, since then, an estimated 41,000 galaxies have been formed in various shapes. Illustris also shows the way galaxies were formed, including the Milky Way and other spiral and elliptical galaxies.
"Illustris is 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," said co-author Shy Genel of the CfA in a press release.
Visit Illustris' website, where videos and images of large-scale dark matter simulations, stellar light distributions, galaxies, radiation maps and many more can be viewed.
Further details of the report were published in the May 8 issue of Nature.
