Astronomy is a little different from many sciences because you only have a sample size of 1. The cosmos contains everything we can observe, so astronomers cannot study various universes to see how it marks our Universe.
But they can create computer simulations of our Universe. By adjusting different aspects of their simulation, astronomers can see how things like dark matter and dark energy play a role in our universe.
Now, if you’re willing to look for a luxury hard drive, you can keep one of these simulations in your pocket.
The Uchuu simulation is the largest and most detailed simulation of the Universe ever made. It contains 2.1 trillion “particles” in a space of 9.6 billion light-years. The simulation models the evolution of the Universe over more than 13 billion years. It does not focus on the formation of stars and planets, but analyzes the behavior of dark matter within an expanding Universe.
The detail of Uchuu is high enough for the team to identify from galaxy clusters to the dark matter halos of individual galaxies. Since dark matter makes up most of the matter in the Universe, it is the main engine for the formation and clustering of galaxies.
Distributions of dark matter from Uchuu simulations at different scales. (Ishiyama et al., MNRAS, 2021)
It takes a lot of computing power and storage to create such a detailed model. The team used more than 40,000 computer cores and 20 million computer hours to generate its simulation and produced more than 3 petabytes of data.
That’s 3,000 TB or 3 million GB for mortals. Although, through high-density compression, the computer was able to compress its results into just 100 TB of storage.
This is still a lot of data, but it can be stored on a single drive.
For example, the Nimbus Exadrive is a 100 TB solid state drive with a standard 3.5-inch form factor. Sure, it’ll get you back $ 40,000, but if you have that kind of change that’s hidden between the sofa cushions, why not use it to keep a universe in your pocket.
Fortunately, if you don’t have as many spare changes, you can access the data online. The Uchuu team has their raw data at skiesanduniverses.org, so you can explore their virtual universe whatever you want.
In addition to being a detailed cosmic simulation, the Uchuu simulation can be used by researchers working in scientific data mining. As large sky surveys are created and more simulations are made, the data will become so large that data mining will play a crucial role in astronomical research.
Until this data is available, data miners can hone their skills in a pocket universe.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.