Our physicists and their collaborators in Leiden are making public one of the largest datasets in cosmology, offering scientists around the world a new way to explore how the Universe evolves.
The data come from the FLAMINGO project, an international effort involving large-scale supercomputer simulations that model how matter evolves across cosmic time.
More than 2.5 petabytes of data are now freely available through the DiRAC (Distributed Research Using Advanced Computer) Memory Intensive Service at our Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC).
All the simulations were run on the COSMA-8 supercomputer which is hosted at Durham as part of the DiRAC national high-performance computing facility in the UK.
This new dataset release provides researchers worldwide with unprecedented access to detailed virtual universes.
Cosmological simulations let scientists follow how dark and visible matter clusters and galaxies form across the Universe.
They are essential for understanding the physical processes at play in the universe and for interpreting the latest observations from major telescopes and satellites.
By comparing simulated universes with real data, researchers can test ideas about dark matter, dark energy and the forces that shape galaxies.
The FLAMINGO project brings together two areas of cosmology that are often kept apart, astrophysics and particle physics
Many detailed simulations focus on small regions of space so they can model the complex physical processes inside galaxies.
But precision cosmology needs models that cover huge volumes.
FLAMINGO does both.
Its simulations stretch across billions of light years, making it possible to study rare structures such as massive galaxy clusters while still capturing the physics of galaxy formation.
Because the dataset is so vast, the FLAMINGO team, a collaboration between the ICC and Leiden University in The Netherlands, developed a web-based system that lets researchers access only the information they need from the 2.5 petabytes of data
Researchers have already used FLAMINGO for studies of galaxy formation and the large-scale structure of the Universe.
With the full dataset now public, the project is set to support many more discoveries.
Discover more about the FLAMINGO project and the data release documentation, including the newly published paper on arXiv.
Learn more about the COSMA supercomputer and the DiRAC high-performance computing facility. DiRAC is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Explore the work of Professor Carlos Frenk and Dr John Helly.
Our Department of Physics is ranked 67th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and third in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2026. Visit our Physics webpages and Institute for Computational Cosmology webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
Main image shows a visualisation of the most massive cluster in the simulation of a cube 2.8 Gpc on a side. Colours are isodensity contours, equally spaced in logarithmic density. Credit: The FLAMINGO Project.
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