Named after a goddess of the dawn, the Thesan simulation of the first billion years helps explain how radiation shaped the early universe.
It all started around 13.8 billion years ago with a big, cosmological “bang” that brought the universe suddenly and spectacularly into existence. Shortly after, the infant universe cooled dramatically and went completely dark.
With Thesan, the researchers can simulate a cubic volume of the universe spanning 300 million light years across. They run the simulation forward in time to track the first appearance and evolution of hundreds of thousands of galaxies within this space, beginning around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, and through the first billion years.
So far, the simulations align with what few observations astronomers have of the early universe. As more observations are made of this period, for instance with the newly launched Stunning Video Showcases the Largest, Most Detailed Simulation of the Early