The brothers created the film as a teaching aid to accompany their 1972 landmark research paper of the same name, published in The Astrophysical Journal, which described galaxy collisions and galaxy mergers.
[1] The Toomre film contains both 2D and 3D computer graphics simulations of colliding galaxies.
[2] In 2007, filmmaker Michael Lauter worked with the Toomre brothers to digitally restore the 16mm original film and create a new HD video (1080p24) digital master.
[2] Massachusetts-based MathWorks created a Simulink model titled Spiral Galaxy Formation Simulation for use within their MATLAB programming environment.
The company states that their computer animation model was inspired by the original Galactic Bridges and Tails paper and film.