Supercomputer Simulation Reveals Gas Hidden Between Galaxies

This supercomputing simulation depicts the gas in and around an evolving galaxy over 13 billion years. The purple-to-yellow colors indicate the gas density, with the purple tracing lower density gas and the yellow tracing higher density gas. The blue-to-red colors indicate gas temperature, the redder colors tracing the hotter gas. The colder, denser gas flows in along cosmic filaments to form the galaxy, where stars (not shown) are forming. These stars then blow up as supernovae that drive galactic superwinds from the galaxy; these are seen predominantly as the hotter diffuse gas blowing out of the galaxy. As there is more star formation and thus more supernovae at early times, these winds become calmer as the galaxy evolves. Video credit: Johns Hopkins University/Molly Peeples; NASA Ames/Timothy Sandstrom