Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have created a “synthetic universe” called OpenUniverse, a virtual outer space model designed to study dark matter and conduct research using next-generation super telescopes. This has been announced officially Web site American space agency.
Experts used the Theta supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The digital copy of the observable area consists of about 4 million images. It shows the universe as it will be seen by the Nancy Grace Roman telescope, which is under construction and scheduled to be launched in 2027.
According to the team, Theta completed the OpenUniverse simulation in nine days — a task that would take about 300 years to complete on a standard consumer laptop.
The Nancy Grace Roman telescope will be used to search for dark matter, a mysterious substance that scientists say makes up 70% of the total mass of space.
The OpenUniverse simulation could help scientists better understand the signatures (characteristic patterns) of dark energy they will see when Nancy Grace Roman and the ground-based Rubin Observatory in Chile can provide images. Rubin is scheduled to become operational in 2025.
Astronomers can only infer the existence of dark matter based on its interaction with gravity, which in turn affects everyday matter and the passage of light.
The Nancy Grace Roman and Rubin telescopes are named after Nancy Roman, NASA’s first scientific director, and Vera Rubin, the American astronomer who first discovered the existence of dark matter in galaxies.
It’s happened before known About plans to launch an artificial “star” into orbit to calibrate ground-based telescopes.