Scientists from the University of California at Santa Cruz are relying on the power and capabilities of a NASA supercomputer to generate a thorough image of galaxies like the Milky Way developing under the forces of dark matter and energy.

The Pleiades supercomputer at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., ran a simulation of the universe, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The simulation corroborates the accuracy of models that astronomers have built to clarify how the 'Big Bang' theory initiated the source of subatomic particles and galaxies that inhabit our growing universe," explained Joel Primack, head of the simulation program at UC-Santa Cruz.

Named "Bolshoi" or "great," the simulation required four years of hard work.

"It is expected to give new guidelines for observing and describing the most distant galaxies that telescopes can see," Primack added.

The simulation tries to track down the progression of large-scale structures in space, and brings to light how coronas of dark matter encircle galaxies in the wide cosmos to provide the gravity that hold them together.

Astronomers have already estimated that dark matter accounts for more almost 80 percent of all matter in the universe.

"The simulation signifies the nature and power of another mysterious force identified as dark energy, which is also vital to the established development of space," Primack stated.

Two principal research papers have been produced as results of the Bolshoi simulation. They will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The whole simulation is based on the most recent adaptation of a map of the early cosmos created almost 10 years ago by a satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.

It uncovered the facts of the microwave radiation that was left like a weak reverberation from the Big Bang, and demonstrated how it indicated the beginnings of the universe, which is more than 13 billion years ago.

One of the research works accepted for publication focuses on the attributes of the halos of dark matter that are around the galaxies, while the other deals with the profusion and properties of the galaxies in the replication.