Starship Asterisk*

Illustris Simulation of the Universe

Explanation: How did we get here? Click play, sit back, and watch. A computer simulation of the evolution of the universe provides insight into how galaxies formed and perspectives into humanity's place in the universe. The Illustris project exhausted 20 million CPU hours in 2014 following 12 billion resolution elements spanning a cube 35 million light years on a side as it evolved over 13 billion years. The simulation tracks matter into the formation of a wide variety of galaxy types. As the virtual universe evolves, some of the matter expanding with the universe soon gravitationally condenses to form filaments, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. The featured video takes the perspective of a virtual camera circling part of this changing universe, first showing the evolution of dark matter, then hydrogen gas coded by temperature (0:45), then heavy elements such as helium and carbon (1:30), and then back to dark matter (2:07). On the lower left the time since the Big Bang is listed, while on the lower right the type of matter being shown is listed. Explosions (0:50) depict galaxy-center supermassive black holes expelling bubbles of hot gas. Interesting discrepancies between Illustris and the real universe have been studied, including why the simulation produced an overabundance of old stars.

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The way it is depicted makes one think it is happening sequentially, instead of at the same time...

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Just how can we be the only ones???

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:34 pm
Just how can we be the only ones???

Slow (i.e., speed of light) connectivity on the Universe Wide Web

For some reason, there is no new APOD today. At least not so far.

Ann

Ann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:03 am For some reason, there is no new APOD today. At least not so far.

Ann

Wonder what's up? Maybe technical issues?

Oddly enough I was able to find the page for the February 24, 2020 APOD entry, even though it is not listed on the APOD archive page, by searching "why no APOD today".

https://www.google.com/search?q=why+no+ ... e&ie=UTF-8

Moon Corona, Halo, and Arcs over Manitoba
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap.html

Perhaps they've decided that index.html was not kewl enough. My bookmark was:

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

but it looks as though it's now changed to:

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap.html

I've updated my bookmark.

I know this is not the place to discuss it....can anyone direct me to a blog or entry that comes up with alternatives to the Big Bang Theory?

sillyworm 2 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:51 pm I know this is not the place to discuss it....can anyone direct me to a blog or entry that comes up with alternatives to the Big Bang Theory?

Well, the thing is, there is no "the" Big Bang theory, but rather, there are several versions. AFAIK there are no longer any seriously considered theories of cosmology that aren't forms of a Big Bang mechanism. So it's unlikely you'll find much of anything that isn't crackpot or pseudoscience. That said, I'd start with the Wikipedia article on Big Bang cosmologies and follow some of the internal links and references that might be relevant to your interest.

I have two questions for anyone who is more knowledgeable about technical details of the simulation: 1.) does the simulation appear accurately to represent the current state of the universe insofar as we're able to discern? 2.) If the answer to the first question is "yes," then what happens if we continue to run the simulation on into the future?

Thanks! Very interesting simulation!