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How black holes shape the cosmos
Astrophysicists from Heidelberg, Garching, and the USA gained new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies. They calculated how black holes influence the distribution of dark matter, how heavy elements are produced and distributed throughout the cosmos, and where magnetic fields originate. This was possible by developing and programming a new simulation model for the universe, which created the most extensive simulations of this kind to date. First results of the "IllustrisTNG" project have now been published in three articles in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. These findings should help to answer fundamental questions in cosmology.
Every galaxy harbours a supermassive black hole at its center. A new computer model now shows how these gravity monsters influence the large-scale structure of our universe. The research team includes scientists from the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), Heidelberg University, the Max-Planck-Institutes for Astronomy (MPIA, Heidelberg) and for Astrophysics (MPA, Garching), US universities Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as the Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York. The project, "Illustris–The Next Generation" (IllustrisTNG) is the most complete simulation of its kind to date. Based on the basic laws of physics, the simulation shows how our cosmos evolved since the Big Bang. Adding to the predecessor Illustris project, IllustrisTNG includes some of the physical processes which play a crucial role in this evolution for the very first time in such an extensive simulation.
TNG Project's web site: http://www.tng-project.org/
Pictures and videos: http://www.tng-project.org/media/
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: matter and galaxy clustering (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3304) (DX)
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the galaxy colour bimodality (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3040) (DX)
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the stellar mass content of groups and clusters of galaxies (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3112) (DX)
(Score: 2) by aliks on Friday February 02 2018, @06:09PM (2 children)
Because of course light is the only means of truly verifying something exists. . . .
To err is human, to comment divine
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @07:00PM
I dunno, it just seems like they have lots of detailed calculations about how invisible stuff A affects invisible stuff B with little that can be done to verify these either way. Not to mention that spheroidal dark matter halos around each galaxy sounds *exactly* like epicycles in 3D.
It is like a lesser version of that multiverse stuff where now there is 10^270,035 possible universes (formerly only 10^500) which we will never interact with at all.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 03 2018, @10:17AM
For things far enough away that we can't go there, yes, light (in the wider sense, that is, electromagnetic radiation) has for a long time been the only way to check that something exists (and yes, that includes dark matter; just because it doesn't interact with light does not mean it does not affect light; its gravitational lensing can certainly observed, as can the movement of visible matter that it influences).
Since quite recently there's a second way to determine the existence of something out there, which is gravitational waves.
Note that without light, you'd not even know that the sun exists.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.