A simulation of the universe will run for 50 days on 30,000 computer processors NASA/ESA/ESO/Wolfram Freudling et al. (STECF)

A massive simulation of the universe is digitally recreating the lives of stars, black holes and galaxies.

Richard Bower at Durham University in the UK and his colleagues have created a computer simulation approximately 1 billion light years across, which models tens of thousands of galaxies.

The team started the simulation on Tuesday and it will run continuously for 50 days across 30,000 computer processors developed by tech firm Intel in both Durham and Paris. It is 30 times …