Lumina models the first two billion years of cosmic evolution
Researchers have created Lumina, a simulation of the first two billion years after the Big Bang. It models how matter, dark matter and radiation interacted as the first galaxies formed, giving scientists a way to examine how early structures shaped the evolving universe.
The model covers a cube of space 1.5 billion light-years across, about 100 times the volume of earlier simulations of its kind. It is the first to model helium reionisation, when ultraviolet light from early stars and galaxies stripped electrons from helium atoms. Lumina was run on more than 15,000 graphics processing units at the Frontier supercomputer in Tennessee.
In short
- Lumina models the universe’s first two billion years.
- It covers 100 times more volume than comparable earlier simulations.
- The model captures helium reionisation for the first time.
Explained simply
The Big Bang marks the beginning of the universe, which has been expanding and changing ever since. In its early years, matter began to gather under gravity, while dark matter, an unseen form of matter, helped shape where that material collected.
The first galaxies formed from these growing concentrations of matter and produced ultraviolet light. That light changed the gas around them by removing electrons from atoms, including helium, in a process called reionisation. Studying this period helps scientists understand how the first galaxies affected the wider universe.
Computer simulations use known physics to recreate how cosmic matter and radiation may have changed over time. They let researchers explore conditions and scales that cannot be observed directly, and compare the results with evidence from telescopes.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “See the early universe like NEVER before: Incredible simulation reveals exactly what happened in the first 2 billion years of our history”.