Supercomputer Simulation Shows for the First Time How a Milky Way-Like Galaxy Forms - Polidicks

[quote] [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/ERIS2.jpg[/img] ERIS J. Guedes and P. Madau via UCSB It took nearly a year of high-powered number crunching on various supercomputers, but researchers from UC Santa Cruz and the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Zurich have finally produced a computer simulation of a galaxy that looks much like our own. That may not sound so huge on its face, but it actually is the first high-resolution simulation of its kind that has turned out a galaxy similar to the Milky Way, and it has rescued the prevailing “cold dark matter” cosmological model of how our disc galaxy formed from a good deal of doubt. That doubt arose from the fact that when previous, lower-resolution models were run based on that cosmological model, a huge central bulge emerged in the galaxy--a bulge that is absent from all but the center of the Milky Way (another way of saying that: there was more bulge and less disc, whereas the Milky way is more disc, less bulge). This had some physicists thinking that perhaps there was a flaw in the cosmological model itself, which seemed incapable of producing via simulation the flat, spiral-armed qualities consistent with observations of our galaxy. RELATED ARTICLES A Spiraling Milky Way Look-Alike Shows What We Must Look Like From Extragalactic Space ESO's Zoomable 0.8 Gigapixel Panoramic Image of the Milky Way Largest Ever Milky Way Panorama Constructed from 800,000 Snapshots TAGS Technology, Clay Dillow, cosmology, galaxy formation, milky way, simulations, Space, supercomputers, visualizationBut the problem wasn’t with the model, it turns out, but with the simulation of star formation. In reality, star formation happens in clusters, where dense clouds of gas feed the process of star birth in fairly tightly defined regions. But in low-resolution simulations(resolution in this sense means the ability to track individual particles), gas densities tended to spread out over relatively large areas, showing stars forming throughout the galaxy rather than in clusters. This led to a larger galactic bulge--and a less accurate picture of how Milky Way-like galaxies came into being. To get the high resolution necessary to make the model work took a great deal of computing power, including 1.4 million processor-hours on NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer as well as additional time on supercomputers at UC Santa Barbara and the Swiss National Supercomputing Center. And at the time, the researchers had no idea if their added resolution would really make a difference. It turns out it did. The simulated galaxy, Eris, shares the shape, bulge-to-disk ratio, star content, brightness, and various other characteristics with the Milky Way, demonstrating that the “cold dark matter” model can produce spiral-armed disc galaxies like the one we call home after all. [/quote] [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/supercomputer-sim-shows-first-time-how-milky-way-disc-galaxy-forms[/url]

Awesome. Always wanted to see that, even though it's really easy to figure out how it would of looked like.

I got nothing to this piece of news.. I mean, yay because we kind of know how it would look like.

Firstly it is the first real model of our own galaxy, and sorta proves dark matter may exist.

This won't really prove dark matter more than what we already know about it.

hows the graphics??

[QUOTE=Novangel;32057645]Firstly it is the first real model of our own galaxy, and sorta proves dark matter may exist.[/QUOTE] It proves as much as the bible does. It is made by man, and therefore does not always mean it's how it happened. It is coded this way. It could easily not have dark matter at all.

[QUOTE=garychencool;32058375]hows the graphics??[/QUOTE] Astronomical

But... Can the supercomputers run Crysis?

[QUOTE=joost1120;32058485]It proves as much as the bible does. It is made by man, and therefore does not always mean it's how it happened. It is coded this way. It could easily not have dark matter at all.[/QUOTE] Yes it's made by man. But its made by men/women taking into consideration an incredible amount of observation and statistical analysis of the real physical galaxy which exists around us. The Bible doesn't have any of this objective analysis of anything physical. So as far as accurate representation of what reality goes, this simulation holds much more weight than something like the bible does (about say spirituality). It's not an absolute proof, but since it runs on observation, its a much greater proof than any proofs the Bible has to offer. Besides, I don't think the simulation was intended as [I]proof[/I] Its a simulation. We are constantly fine tuning our mathematical understanding of the way the matter of our galaxy interacts with itself. If this simulation runs with a given set of initial conditions and physical laws, and comes with a near identical outcome to what we observe today, it means that the conditions and laws we are feeding it must be pretty damn accurate to the real world. There are almost innumerable ways a galaxy could evolve, so to match what we observe to be our own is pretty fantastic.

[QUOTE=Cone;32058708]But... Can the supercomputers run Crysis?[/QUOTE] It can make a galaxy of crysis's!

I was expecting a neat animation. >:

Or high-resolution images. >: