What Milky Way's deadly smash-up will look like

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

There's a lot of drama in store for the Milky Way: in 2.3 billion year's time it will graze its neighbouring galaxy Andromeda only to collide and merge with it in 5 billion years' time. Now you can preview the action in unprecedented detail thanks to a new simulation by Simon Portugies Zwart from Leiden University in the Netherlands and his team that can be paused to further explore the process.

The visualisation uses a new system to simulate gravitational forces between stars in the galaxy, allowing it to approximate the interaction of 286,000 bodies. During the Milky Way's first run in with Andromeda, a green display in the video illustrates how the algorithm works. It divides the data into 3D boxes based on the density of stars in a given area, continuously subdividing a region until there are no more than 16 stars in a box. By focusing on denser regions, the computing power required to create a realistic model is dramatically reduced compared to simulating interactions between all stars.

The team eventually hopes to use the system to simulate the evolution of stars and their clusters and planets in the Milky Way. But it should also be useful to model other processes in physics, chemistry and even finance.

If you enjoyed this post, see how the Milky Way got its spiral arms or watch a time-lapse of the Milky Way's formation.

howard stern free shipping day free shipping day golden globe nominations 2012 war in iraq war in iraq government shutdown