Computer Simulation Recreates the Universe and 13 Billion Years of Cosmic History (VIDEO)

Astronomers have managed to create the first realistic virtual universe using a computer simulation that can recreate 13 billion years of cosmic evolution in a cube that's 350 million light-years on a side. This latest feat could offer scientists a way to peer back in time and learn a little bit more about the origins of our world and our universe.

The new computer program is called "Illustris." It employs a sophisticated computer program to recreate the evolution of the universe in high fidelity. It includes both normal matter and dark matter using 12 billion 3D pixels.

"Until now, no single simulation was able to reproduce the universe on both large and small scales simultaneously," said Mark Vogelsberger, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In fact, it took five years to develop the Illustris program, and the actual calculations took three months of "run time," using a totally of 8,000 CPUs running in parallel. With an average desktop computer, these calculations would have probably taken more than 2,000 years to complete.

The computer simulation began just 12 million years after the Big Bang, a blink of an eye in terms of cosmic time. When it reached the present day, astronomers countered more than 41,000 galaxies in the cube of simulated space. More importantly, Illustris created a realistic mix of spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way.

"Illustris is like a time machine," said Shy Genel, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We can go forward and backward in time. We can pause the simulation and zoom into a single galaxy or galaxy cluster to see what's really going on."

The findings reveal a little bit more about the universe. More specifically, the model reveals how it evolved over time. This, in turn, can allow astronomers to know more about the galaxies of today, which constantly shift and change over cosmic time.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

Want to see hte simulation? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.