Asteroid Kills Dinosaurs, Scientists Just Watch

Shown is a group of scientists reviewing the simulation results of 3D simulations of the K-T impact event that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 

Some of the details about the simulation conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.

   –Horizontal extent of the simulation volume is 256 km x 128 km

   –Vertical strata in simulation volume:

The calculations were performed with continuous adaptive mesh refinement code SAGE on 1024 processors of the ASC Q machine.

When you have data that big you need some serious computing power and software.  These scientists used EnSight from CEI.

The Leading Tool for Simulation Post-processing and Visualization

EnSight is the one complete visualization solution for your structural analysis problems, including thermal, vibration, acoustic, and mechanical. EnSight reads data from leading CFD, FEA, CAD, DEM, FSI and other sources.

EnSight and EnSight Gold read all of your CAE and CFD data including FEA results, particles and SPH meshless methods, and fluid models used in aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, airbag inflation, hydroplaning, sloshing, ditching and other FSI simulations. EnSight Gold lets you load your model in a VR environment, and also allows you to collaborate with colleagues without leaving your desk. With support for parallel post-processing and parallel graphics rendering, EnSight Gold is the leader in handling the largest models in the world.  And if you have a visualization cluster then EnSight DR can leverage that valuable resource.