A basic scientific method for testing theories in cosmology is to evaluate their consequences for the observable parts of the universe.
In addition to improving the treatment of the astrophysics of galaxy formation, recent versions have adjusted the parameters of the underlying cosmological model to reflect changing ideas about their precise values.
To date (mid-2018) more than 950 published papers have made use of data from the Millennium Run, making it, at least by this measure, the highest impact astrophysical simulation of all time.
A super computer located in Garching, Germany executed the simulation, which used a version of the GADGET code, for more than a month.
[4] The Sloan Digital Sky Survey had challenged the current understanding of cosmology by finding black hole candidates in very bright quasars at large distances.
In successfully managing to produce quasars at early times, the Millennium Simulation demonstrated that these objects do not contradict our models of the evolution of the universe.
[5] Cosmologists use the MXXL simulation to study the distribution of galaxies and dark matter halos on very large scales and how the rarest and most massive structures in the universe came about.