Visualizing the World’s Largest Turbulence Simulation

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In this visualization, LRZ presents the largest interstellar turbulence simulations ever performed, unravelling key astrophysical processes concerning the formation of stars and the relative role of magnetic fields. Besides revealing features of turbulence with an unprecedented resolution, the visualizations brilliantly showcase the stretching-and-folding mechanisms through which astrophysical processes such as supernova explosions drive turbulence and amplify the magnetic field in the interstellar gas, and how the first structures, the seeds of newborn stars are shaped by this process.

How are stars born? How do they die? And how do those massive explosions spread elements across the universe? Answers to these questions ultimately bring us closer to understanding how the Earth as we know it came to be. In the past decade, high performance computing has been crucial to further accelerate and expand the scope of astrophysics, enabling increasingly larger, more detailed simulations of supernovae and galaxy formation. A team of researchers from the Australian National University (ANU), Intel and LRZ, led by our colleague Salvatore Cielo managed to visualize the largest simulation of astrophysical turbulence ever performed.

This is very impressive and relevant science was made possible by SuperMUC-NG, currently Germany’s most powerful supercomputer.

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