The birth of Jupiter: a first visualization computed on CSCS’s ‘Alps’ machine

The first-ever visualization computed on CSCS’s new ‘Alps’ supercomputer brings to life a giant collision in our solar system’s evolution: proto-Jupiter collides with a celestial body made of rock, ice and hydrogen-helium. The powerful impact happened a few million years after the formation of the Sun, and the animation covers 4.4 hours of real time.
The simulation underlying this visualization was performed by scientists in Joachim Stadel’s group at the University of Zürich. The team simulated the massive collision to find out more about Jupiter’s “fuzzy core”: The gas planet’s core has no strict boundary with its atmosphere, with the transition from core to atmosphere being fluid. There are several hypotheses on the reason for this, one of which is the visualized giant impact that is thought to have mixed the existing core with the atmosphere.