Two 50 Galaxy Cluster Crash Simulation (beta=90)

A 160 thousand particle simulation showing the collision between two galaxy clusters of fifty galaxies each. The luminous galaxy particles are shown in white, and consist of the 10% most tightly bound particles assigned to each galaxy. The clusterwide potential well is formed by the cluster dark matter particles, and these are shown in orange. All simulations shown have 10% of the total mass in the galaxies and 90% (beta=90) in the clusterwide dark matter halo. Galaxies do not contain dark matter halos. All galaxy matter is luminous.

A higher resolution version of this movie can be found at http://rberring.iweb.bsu.edu/animations.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Astronomy
• N-body

[typesix]

It must take some hard core processing power to run a simulation like this. Badass!

[rberring]

@typesix By todays standards, it requires relatively little computational power. There are simulations that are many times larger like the millennium simulation that are much larger. Even the millennium simulation can be run in a relatively short time now. These simulations are within the capability of most desktop computers with required computational times ~a few days. Glad you enjoyed the simulations.

[CrazyPilotEarl]

The end result is what I imagine the "Great Attractor" to be.

[rberring]

@CrazyPilotEarl Well the current idea of what the great attractor is thought to be is a missing cluster of rather large mass ~10^{15-18} solar masses that has perturbed the flow of matter in the nearby universe. Some suggestions have been offered for possible sources, but as far as I know still eludes a definitive identification. But in some sense you are correct. However the "missing" cluster is probably much larger than the resulting cluster above.

[Volgeirea]

mr t vs chuck norris

[rberring]

@Volgeirea I'm not sure what to what you are referring or what relation this has to the simulation on this page.

[PelicanGodOfJupiter]

@rberring Does this simulation take into account the effect of dark matter, or is it purely based on gravity?

[Volgeirea]

@rberring its a joke, relating what would happen if mike tyson and chuck norris got into a fight, even though this does not compare in the least bit, its close enough.

[rberring]

@mastanugget Galaxy collisions have been known to cause star formation in galaxies. There are many examples of galaxy-on-galaxy collisions where massive star formation is occurring. The most likely culprit is the collision between the galaxies. So in short, a collision between two galaxies is effectively a massive train wreck in the sky.

[mastanugget]

@rberring Gravity will be so great at the collision point that it might cause major star birth from the dust being torn from galaxies. It would be a massive train wreak in the sky.