Question: Hey Stacy! What do you actually watch happen when you simulate universes?

Stacy Kim answered on 12 Oct 2022:

That’s a great question! I look at how individual galaxies form. They usually don’t form alone, but often have tons of little galaxies crash onto them—things can sometimes get really wild! You can see lots of stars form when these “mergers” happen. Some of the most massive stars explode when they die, and you can see them blow giant bubbles in their galaxy’s dust! Since I’m super interested in dark matter, I also track how much dark matter the galaxy has over time, and how that’s affecting the stars, the size of the galaxy, and other things. It turns out dark matter can have a huge effect on the tiny galaxies that I simulate!