The most detailed supercomputer simulation ever of our Milky Way galaxy has been created by combining machine learning with numerical models. By running 100 times faster than the next most detailed models, the program gives astronomers the chance to map billions of years of the evolution of our galaxy in months rather than decades.
The new simulation contains 100 billion particles representing stars, which is roughly the same number of stars that call the Milky Way home. The previous best-resolution simulations could only manage a billion stars, and were slow. To model a million years of galactic evolution in detail would take 315 hours, or 13 days, in real-time, meaning that to simulate a billion years using those previous best-resolution simulations would take almost 36 years of real computing time.
