Aquarius Project - Galactic Halo Formation Simulation.

The Aquarius Project is a large-scale collaborative program of the Virgo
Consortium, similar in scope and scale to the Millennium Simulation
project. At present, the principal set of Aquarius simulations contains
six examples of an isolated halo similar in mass to that of the Milky
Way. These are simulated in their full cosmological context (assuming
the concordance LCDM cosmology) and at various resolutions up to about
200 million particles (counted within the radius where the enclosed
density is 200 times the cosmic mean). One halo is also simulated at
even higher resolution, resulting in almost 1.5 billion particles within
this radius. These simulations are being used to understand the
fine-scale structure predicted around the Milky Way by the standard
structure formation model, and as the basis for simulation by various
techniques of the growth of the stellar components of our Galaxy.

This
movie shows the formation of one of the Aquarius halos simulated, over
nearly the full age of the Universe from redshift z~50 to z=0. The
camera position moves slowly around the forming galactic halo, pointing
towards its center at all times. The movie is based on the Aq-A-2
simulation.

credit: Aquarius Project