In this scientific visualization, two spiral galaxies are set on a collision course. As one slices through the other, both are disrupted. The tidal forces of gravity produce long tails of material streaming away from the collision. The central regions relatively quickly fall together and merge. The visualization is based on research data from a supercomputer simulation, with stars shown in yellow and gas shown blue. Time passes at about 30 million years per second, lasting a total of about 1.5 billion years.

This version was rendered for a planetarium dome format (polar coordinate hemisphere projection). The camera choreography was designed for uni-directional seating, where there is a common focus point of the audience (front and center, about 60 degrees up).

The camera motion is somewhat complex, and can be discerned by watching the movement of the background galaxy field. The camera starts by dropping down to reveal the first galaxy in the front right and then the second galaxy to the front left. The camera also moves in toward the galaxies to get a closer view of the initial collision. After the initial collision, the camera continues to drop slowly, now increasing the distance to the galaxies and tilting a bit to keep the tidal tails on screen as much as possible. The camera also rotates slowly to increase the sweeping feel of the tidal tails passing above.

Visualization: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute

Simulation: Chris Mihos, Case Western Reserve University, and Lars Hernquist, Harvard University

This visualization of a computer simulation showcases the ‘cosmic web’, the large scale structure of the universe. Each bright knot is an entire galaxy, while the purple filaments show where material exists between the galaxies. To the human eye, only the galaxies would be visible, and this visualization allows us to see the strands of material connecting the galaxies and forming the cosmic web.

This visualization is based on a scientific simulation of the growth of structure in the universe. The matter, dark matter, and dark energy in a region of the universe are followed from very early times of the universe through to the present day using the equations of gravity, hydrodynamics, and cosmology. The normal matter has been clipped to show only the densest regions, which are the galaxies, and is shown in white. The dark matter is shown in purple. The size of the simulation is a cube with a side length of 134 megaparsecs (437 million light-years).

The camera choreography is a straight line path through the simulation. The camera accelerates from a standstill at the start, flies at a constant speed, and then decelerates to a stop at the end. The “cruising speed” of the camera is 250,000 parsecs per frame, or about 20 million light-years per second (at 24 frames per second). That’s more than 600 trillion times the speed of light. Buckle your seatbelts.

The simulation is periodic, and the camera flies through it several times. A skew angle is used to avoid showing the same structures on each fly through. The camera path (after accelerating to full speed) does repeat every 2000 frames. Hence, one can get an infinite loop by showing the frames 100 – 2099 over and over.

Visualization: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute

Simulation: Martin White and Lars Hernquist, Harvard University