Tuesday, December 10, 2013

New Project Aims To Improve Galaxy Simulation — And Help Us Understand More About The Universe

New Project Aims To Improve Galaxy Simulation — And Help Us Understand More About The Universe:
Image of NGC 6872 (left) and companion galaxy IC 4970 (right) locked in a tango as the two galaxies gravitationally interact. The galaxies lie about 200 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pavo (the Peacock).  Image credit: Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club, Travis Rector (University of Alaska, Anchorage), Ángel López-Sánchez (Australian Astronomical Observatory/Macquarie University), and the Australian Gemini Office.
New Project Aims To Improve Galaxy Simulation — And Help Us Understand More About The Universe
Image of NGC 6872 (left) and companion galaxy IC 4970 (right) locked in a tango as the two galaxies gravitationally interact. The galaxies lie about 200 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pavo (the Peacock). Image credit: Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club, Travis Rector (University of Alaska, Anchorage), Ángel López-Sánchez (Australian Astronomical Observatory/Macquarie University), and the Australian Gemini Office.
Galaxy modelling is complicated, and even more so when different computer models don’t agree on how the factors come together. This makes it hard to understand the nature of our universe. One new project called AGORA (Assembling Galaxies of Resolved Anatomy) aims to resolve the discrepancies and make the results more consistent. Basically, the project aims to compare different codes against each other and also against observations.
“The physics of galaxy formation is extremely complicated, and the range of lengths, masses, and timescales that need to be simulated is immense,” stated Piero Madau, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and co-chair of the AGORA steering committee.
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Read the rest of New Project Aims To Improve Galaxy Simulation — And Help Us Understand More About The Universe (377 words)

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