The density distribution of matter in a slice of the computational volume of the Millennium Run model, showing large clusters with densities 1,000 times the mean density of the Universe (yellow); a 'cosmic web' of filamentary structures 10 to 100 times denser than the mean (purple); and the mostly empty regions (black), often called voids, which contain less than 10% of the mean density of the Universe. The white square shows the size of the computational volume for a full hydrodynamic simulation that would use up the same computational resources as the Millennium Run. (Figure courtesy of Volker Springel.)
Cosmology: Digitizing the Universe by Nickolay Y. Gnedin in Nature 435, 572-573 (2 June 2005).
For years, cosmologists have been racing each other to develop ever more sophisticated and realistic models of the evolution of the Universe. The competition has just become considerably stiffer.
