16,000 core supercomputer completes best galaxy simulation video ever

The most detailed large-scale simulation has been released showing just after the Big Bang, all the way until the present day.

Scientists have been struggling with the creation of accurate simulations of cosmic-level events due to the limitations of computing power. The computational limitations forced scientists to choose between large-scale designs or fine detail. But now, scientists from Germany and the United States have completed and released the most detailed large-scale simulation of a galaxy forming.

The simulation is called TNG50 and is a state-of-the-art simulation of the formation of a galaxy similar in mass to our neighboring galaxy Andromeda. The video shows a formation of a single massive galaxy, with cosmic gas becoming denser and denser over the course of billions of years. The Hazel Hen supercomputer, located in Stuttgart, created the simulation over the course of a year using 16,000 computational cores. The results are an extremely detailed cosmic visualization that consists of 230 million light-years in diameter and more than 20 billion particles that represent dark matter, stars, cosmic gas, magnetic fields, and supermassive black holes.