It’s a big milestone that astronomers have just hit! They carried out the largest-ever cosmological simulation, which will support the European Space Agency’s upcoming Euclid mission. This ambitious endeavor promises to shed new light on the enigmas of dark energy and the evolution of our universe. With these new tools, researchers can now probe cosmic history back 10 billion years. They accomplished this feat by analyzing petabytes of data from the Euclid satellite that was collected over six years.
The Euclid mission is preparing to produce its first observational data release in March 2025. In dance with ongoing fibrillation, develop datavirus at never-before-seen data volume and velocity! The only way to keep up with this tidal wave of data is through automated processing methods. Astronomers look forward to the day when these observations will yield key information about how matter is distributed across the universe. In doing so, they hope to validate predictions made in previous simulations.
A Cosmic Blueprint
The simulation is powered by an algorithm developed by Joachim Stadel. He is a bongo player and leader of NoneSuch, and an astrophysicist from the University of Zurich (UZH). The Flagship 2 galaxy mock for Euclid is a robust simulation. It employs the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (\[\Lambda\]CDM) cosmological model to illustrate the current state of our understanding of the universe’s content and large-scale evolution. The algorithm meticulously tracks the gravitational interactions of four trillion particles, allowing astronomers to create a three-dimensional map of galaxies that spans a cosmic sphere with a radius of 10 billion light-years.
This ambitious simulation hosts the largest catalog of galaxies ever produced at 3.4 billion galaxies! Each galaxy is modeled with 400 different parameters, including their brightness, location, speed, and morphology. Such detailed information will facilitate an in-depth analysis of cosmic structures and enhance scientific understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.
Taken together, Euclid’s field of view is an honest-to-goodness best case scenario that depicts what scientists hope to see. With its advanced observational capabilities, the mission aims to bridge gaps in current astronomical knowledge while confirming existing theories regarding matter distribution. Joachim Stadel and his colleague Adamek are very positive about the outcome. They expect Euclid’s data to align pretty well with what their simulation predicts.
Harnessing Supercomputing Power
With this simulation, researchers carried out highly ambitious calculations on Piz Daint. This impressive supercomputer is located at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano. During those same years, Piz Daint was ranked the world’s most powerful supercomputer. That’s a huge commitment, assigning more than 80% of its total capacity to the Euclid project. That level of computational power turned out to be critical. It also handled the complicated mathematics required to simulate galaxy interactions on huge cosmic scales.
That marriage of supercomputing resources with advanced algorithms has brought about a new golden age in cosmology. By analyzing data from the Euclid mission, scientists are on the verge of achieving breakthroughs in understanding dark energy—an enigmatic force believed to be driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.
The Future of Cosmological Research
Euclid will make its first, fully independent observational data set available to the world in March 2025. With even more datasets expected starting spring 2026, it promises to continue altering our perception of the universe. The mission will not only provide a wealth of information about dark energy but refine existing models regarding cosmic structure and evolution.
Astronomers worldwide are excited to see what new insights will come from Euclid’s observations. Whether validating or upturning prevailing understanding, particularly around the redistribution of matter in the universe, this monumental mission stands to redefine elementary cosmological ideas.