WATCH: Physicists recreate the formation of the Milky Way
By Gavan Reilly
This is the simulated galaxy created by the international model - which bears remarkable similarities to the Milky Way.
A TEAM OF astrophysicists in Switzerland and the United States have used supercomputers to create what they claim is the world’s first realistic simulation of how the Milky Way came into existence.
The teams from the University of Zurich and the University of California at Santa Cruz spent eight months compiling the hyper-realistic reconstruction using machines at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre.
The goal of the project was to try and create a model that gave results as close to actual reality as possible – hoping, along the way, to prove some of the theories that underpin science’s knowledge of how the universe came to be.
The simulation – titled ‘Eris’, after the Greek god of discord – begins its recreation from one million years after the big bang, and shows how the observed laws of gravity, fluid dynamics and radiophysics can act to create a spiral galaxy like our own.
Among the more practical outcomes of the simulation, Science Daily said, was the proof that there are stars on the outer edge of our home galaxy.
It also displayed, conclusively, that giant gas clouds must form first before a spiral galaxy can emerge – with the galaxy then growing by absorbing other planetary objects from its vicinity.
Comments (6 Comments)
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David Lee 29/08/11 Report this commentMore proof of where we all originated from all those millions of years ago !!
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Seán Ó Briain 29/08/11 Report this commentThat’s pretty amazing. It’s not just a quick mock up – it’s a simulation that took insane processing power.
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des greene 29/08/11 Report this commentDid they account for dark matter????
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Bertie SirCastic 30/08/11 Report this commentIf you squint slightly you can make out E.T. in a basket; on the front of a bike; pissin himself laughing at us!!
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Michael O'Neill 29/08/11 Report this comment@ Des Greene
The dark matter simulation is next month, when they position a videocam over the bowl in the male toilets and flush it, then blag another 8 months funding for their supercomputer…
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Mr G 30/08/11 Report this commentThe simulation follows the interactions of more than 60 million particles of dark matter and gas. A lot of physics goes into the code–gravity and hydrodynamics, star formation and supernova explosions–and this is the highest resolution cosmological simulation ever done this way, big achievement nothing to be laughed at
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Michael O'Neill 29/08/11 Report this commentIt looks like someone poured flourescent liquid into a sink in the science laboratory and video’d it going down the plughole.
Given the existence of the supergiant black hole in the centre of the Milky Way, that’s not such a bad approximation.
We’ll all end up going down the plughole in time – or out of time. – or outside of time – or whatever!