Scientists have shown what the young universe looked like.
An international team of scientists has created one of the largest computer models of the early universe. Lumina imaging allows us to trace how, after the Big Bang, the first stars appeared, galaxies and black holes formed, and space gradually took on its familiar appearance.
The model covers the first two billion years of the existence of the universe and a space that extends about 1.5 billion light years in each direction. This is more than 100 times the volume that previous similar simulations were able to explore. To perform the calculations, scientists used one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Frontier, located in the USA.
The researchers will now be able to compare Lumina's results with real observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, the world's largest space telescope, which can see galaxies that existed billions of years ago. A coincidence of data will confirm the correctness of scientific theories about the evolution of the universe, but the discrepancies may be even more valuable.
In fact, it's much more interesting if the results don't match. This would indicate that our model is missing something, and could provide clues about as yet unknown physical processes.
- explained the lead author of the study Oliver Zier.