The Virtual Universe

About this video

Recreating the early universe on a computer.

Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen shows off some his 'virtual galaxies' generated from computational models of the early universe.

Because scientists can't just stick a galaxy in a lab and poke around, they must rely on computer models to explore how they form and evolve over time. To do this, the conditions of the early universe must be recreated within a computer to form a virtual space in which a galaxy can form.

However recreating the early universe in digital form is hard work - even for a supercomputer it can take months to run the calculations and create a universe of data.