Lucio Mayer and his team simulated for the first time worldwide the birth of the Milky Way. The results stimulated many discussions in online forums. Lucio answers our questions.
- Lucio, this is the first simulation that allows reproducing the birth and evolution of a Milky Way-like galaxy. What are the main difficulties and challenges in achieving such results? Why couldn’t we get to this point before?
- How can we be confident that this is the way things actually took place? Can we compare to real objects that we observe in the sky?
- You spoke about the key-role of Dark Matter in the simulation. What is Dark Matter? Which are the evidences that it exists?
- Many viewers complained about the low resolution of the movie. Wouldn’t it have been possible to produce a HD movie?
- The costs of this simulation, in terms of computing systems, power, and work is very high. What’s the return of this effort and its impact on society?
- What are the main challenges in astrophysics currently studied with the help of the supercomputers?
- What are the perspectives for this kind of research? What’s still missing in your model? How will you improve it in the future?
- You stopped your simulation after 13 billion of years. What will happen if you would continue? What will happen in the end?
