This simulation shows how a galaxy like the Milky Way forms and evolves through time. It runs from the birth of the Universe (13.7 billion years ago) to 3 billion years ago.
The forming galaxy begins as a clump of dark matter threads that knit together; gas and stars then begin to form along these bright veins as time ticks on. A major event in the Milky Way’s history is also labelled at around one minute in, when another object collided with the infant Milky Way.
Gas is shown in blue, stars in white, dark matter in red, and iron in green, as indicated by the labels displayed at bottom left. In the bottom right, the amount of time ago is shown via both the ‘z’ label (referring to redshift), and the ‘GYR’ label (with 1 Gyr, or gigayear, equalling 1 billion years).
The simulation was produced by Florent Renaud as part of his Vintergatan Project (Vintergatan being the Swedish word for ‘Milky Way’, meaning ‘The Winter Street’).