Image Gallery for cosmological simulations and galaxy clusters

Credit: Klaus Dolag
Simulation code: Gadget
Vizualisation code: Splotch
Cosmological Simulations
Shown is a large (e.g. GPc in size) region of space at z=0.8 (e.g. when the universe had halve the age of today) from a very large, cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation. The hop plasma filling the space between the galaxies and even between the galaxy clusters is visualized in colors ranging from brown to light blue. The white dots represents the stars which form galaxies within the this simulation. The inlays shows a sequence of zooms onto a super cluster structure formed in the simulation.
Shown is a region of space at z=0 (e.g. today) which is roughly one order of magnitude larger than the previous image and shows a large cosmic structure which connects 4 very massive galaxy clusters. The hop plasma filling the space between the galaxies and even between the galaxy clusters is visualized in colors ranging from brown to light blue, the stars formed within the simulation are colored from purple to white.
Shown is the temperature of the plasma filling the large scale cosmic structures (from dark/red=cold to white=hot).
Colorized is the velocity of the matter within the large scale cosmic structures, giving an impression of the dynamics of structure formation from large down to smallest scales.
Snapshot from a computer simulation of the formation of large-scale structures in the Universe, showing a patch of 100 million light-years and the resulting coherent motions of galaxies flowing towards the highest mass concentration in the centre. The snapshot refers to an epoch about 10 billion years back in time. The colour scale represents the mass density, with the highest density regions painted in red and the lowest in black. The tiny yellow lines describe the intensity and direction of the galaxy's velocities. Like compass needles, they map the infall pattern and measure the rate of growth of the central structure. This depends on the subtle balance between dark matter, dark energy and the expansion of the Universe.
Slice through a cosmological simulation visualising the density within the cosmic structures. Low density is shown in dark colors, white correspond to high densities.
Slice through a cosmological simulation visualising the temperature within the cosmic structures. Increasing temperatures are shown in blue (cold), white (intermediate) and red (hot).
Galaxy Clusters
Shown is the cosmological structure when the universe has approximately 15% of its actual age. The shown region has a size so that the light would need about 30 millions of years to pass through the region shown. Visualized is the diffuse, hot plasma filling the space between the galaxies according to its temperature, ranging from 1000 degrees to more than 100 million degrees (red to yellow colors). Additional the stars formed within galaxies and larger structures are shown in white to blue colors. When the universe continue to evolve, almost all this rich, filamentary structures will collapse to form a single, prominent galaxy cluster.
Ray-tracing image of a galaxy cluster.
Visible are prominent structure within the hot plasma, building the atmosphere of a galaxy cluster.
All stars formed within the simulation of a galaxy cluster are shown.
Shown is the temperature of the plasma, which fills the space between stars and galaxies in a system, where two galaxy clusters are currently undergoing a merger event.
Shown is the hot plasma atmosphere of a galaxy clusters, reveling the richness of substructure and their dynamics during the formation of the largest gravitational bound objects in the universe. When falling into the cluster, the galaxies are losing their gaseous atmosphere (appearing in white), forming comet-like features of gas trails. Due to tidal forces these trails sometimes get deformed into arc-like structures.