It's a research project that uses powerful supercomputers to create virtual models of galaxies smashing into each other. These simulations help us understand what happens when these massive cosmic structures collide over millions of years.

Real-life galaxy collisions happen too slowly for us to watch. By simulating them, we can speed up time and test our theories of gravity and galaxy evolution to see how these mergers create the larger galaxies we observe in the universe today.

The GCS treats stars, gas, and dark matter as millions of individual particles. The computer then calculates the gravitational forces between all of them over and over, allowing us to watch how the galaxies' shapes are distorted and how they eventually merge.

The main goal is to understand how galaxy mergers trigger bursts of new star formation and feed the supermassive black holes at their centers. It also helps explain how spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, can merge to become giant elliptical galaxies. 🌠