Supercomputer reconstructs evolution of the universe

Chinese scientists and international collaborators have used one of the largest cosmological simulations ever created to "fast-forward" the universe from the "Big Bang" all the way to the present day inside a supercomputer.

The project, called HyperMillennium and led by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, simulates a cubic volume of space with a side size of 12 billion light years. That is roughly equivalent to lining up about 120,000 Milky Way galaxies end to end.

Inside this digital universe, 4.2 trillion virtual dark matter particles evolve under gravity, reproducing 13.8 billion years of cosmic history. Dark matter refers to an invisible form of matter that does not emit or absorb light but is believed to make up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe and to provide the gravitational "framework" on which galaxies form.