Posted on 05/31/2023 12:51:44 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: How did we get here? We know that we live on a planet orbiting a star orbiting a galaxy, but how did all of this form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. Specifically, this featured video from the IllustrisTNG collaboration tracks gas from the early universe (redshift 12) until today (redshift 0). As the simulation begins, ambient gas falls into and accumulates in a region of relatively high gravity. After a few billion years, a well-defined center materializes from a strange and fascinating cosmic dance. Gas blobs -- some representing small satellite galaxies -- continue to fall into and become absorbed by the rotating galaxy as the present epoch is reached and the video ends. For the Milky Way Galaxy, however, big mergers may not be over -- recent evidence indicates that our large spiral disk Galaxy will collide and coalesce with the slightly larger Andromeda spiral disk galaxy in the next few billion years.
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That’s some 1960’s LSD studies material there.
Calvin may only be 6 years old but he had this figured out. See the strip reprinted in GoComics today. Calvin is telling Hobbes:
"Eventually we're each going to die, our species will go extinct, the sun will explode, and the universe will collapse. Existence is not only temporary, but pointless! We're all doomed, and worse, nothing matters!"
WRONG. Beating the democRATs matters!
Beating the Democrats helps in the short run, but as Snoopy once asked, “Five hundred years from now, who’s going to know the difference?”
How can we argue with such a computer simulation? We can’t. They don’t know any more than we do. Best guesses.
It is pretty, tho.
No we do not have several million years worth of observations on which to base it, but we do have math and computers and its fun to see what they do with it. I enjoy the colors. (I know, the false colors that astronomers use to represent wavelengths that are invisible to us.)
So thanks for posting this every night for us to enjoy!
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