Astronomers have created our galaxy in a supercomputer read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/822-astronomers-have-created-our-galaxy-in-a-supercomputer

Astronomers have created the most detailed computer simulation to date of our Milky Way galaxy formation.

The simulation solves a decades-old mystery tiny galaxies that swarm around the outside of our larger Milky Way. Previous simulations predicted that thousands of these satellite, or dwarf, galaxies should exist.

However, about 30 of the small galaxies have ever been observed. Astronomers have been tinkering with the simulations, trying to understand this missing satellites problem to no avail.

Now, Caltech astronomers have created a galaxy, which used a network of thousands of computers running in parallel for 7,00,000 central processing unit (CPU) hours that looks like the one we live in today, with the correct smaller number of dwarf galaxies.

One of the main updates to the new simulation relates to how supernovae, explosions of massive stars, affect their surrounding environments.

Andrew Wetzel, postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, says, the new simulation incorporated detailed formulas that describe the dramatic effects that winds from these explosions can have on star-forming material and dwarf galaxies.

Indeed, Previous simulations that were producing thousands of dwarf galaxies weren't taking the full effect of supernovae into account.

Astronomers simulate our galaxy to understand how the Milky Way, and our solar system within it. To do this, the researchers tell a computer what our universe was like in the early cosmos.

They write complex codes for the basic laws of physics and describe the ingredients of the universe, including everyday matter like hydrogen gas as well as dark matter, which invisible, exerts gravitational tugs on another matter.

The researchers don’t simulate our Milky Way. They plan to use even more computing time, up to 20 million CPU hours, in their next rounds.