2.5-Petabyte Universe Simulation Recreates Cosmic Evolution in Unprecedented Detail

by Aaron Leong — Wednesday, May 06, 2026, 11:14 AM EDT

Astronomers have released the biggest ever computer simulation of the universe that gives researchers a fresh way to test how the cosmos formed and evolved. The dataset, built by the FLAMINGO project, impressively contains more than 2.5 petabytes of simulation data (imagine buying that kind of storage space in 2026).

FLAMINGO (or Full-hydro Large-scale structure simulations with All-sky Mapping for the Interpretation of Next Generation Observations, phew) was designed to follow the growth of cosmic structure across vast stretches of space while still modeling the messy physics of galaxy formation, thus giving scientists a tool that can connect the small-scale behavior of matter to the giant web of filaments and nodes that maps the universe on its largest scales.

Along with an international team led in part by researchers at Leiden University, lead author Joop Schaye described the simulations as a way to track cosmic structure over huge regions while still accounting for the physics that shapes galaxies.

simulation large — *Slice through of a region of the Universe simulated with FLAMINGO (Credit: Schaye et al. 2023)*

Schaye adds that the team will make the information available to the public. By opening FLAMINGO's results to researchers worldwide, the team is betting that more minds will uncover more uses for the simulations, from testing ideas about galaxy formation to studying the distribution of matter across the cosmos. The project already has a research record behind it: since the simulations appeared in 2023, they have been used in dozens of studies, and the wider release is expected to accelerate that work further.

Scale alone does not make the dataset useful, though. The team also built an online platform so researchers can explore and download only the parts they need instead of wrestling with the full mountain of data. Sometimes in modern astronomy, one of the biggest bottlenecks researchers face is often not collecting information but making it manageable and accessible enough.

While the FLAMINGO project's data trove (which the researchers point out is roughly equivalent to 500,000 HD movies) is undoubtedly impressive, the scientific aim is simply to make a better map of how the universe behaves. In real-world use, that means comparing simulated universes with actual observations to pin down the physical rules behind the cosmic web and refine the models that describe the universe’s long-term evolution.