World’s biggest sensitive radio telescope needs to borrow your computer

[Ichingcarpenter]

World’s biggest sensitive radio telescope needs to borrow your computer




Australia wants to host the world’s biggest and most sensitive radio telescope, and as part of its bid to land the $2.1 billion Square Kilometer Array (SKA) the joint Aussie-New Zealand effort is going go launch a massive cloud computing initiative in September to prove it can handle the data flow. The initiative could quickly turn into one of the largest scientific cloud computing networks in the world, tapping the computing power and storage offered up by desktop computers worldwide.


The Square Kilometer Array, as the name suggests, is going to be huge; 3,000 radio dishes will be spread as far as 2,000 miles in every direction from a central core, offering a full 1,000,000 square meters (that’s one square kilometer) of collection surface. Such a sensitive instrument will probe the very beginnings of the universe, help test general relativity, and map the cosmos in unprecedented detail.


http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-05/handle-skas-data-load-oxford-researchers-propose-massive-cloud-computing-network

[wysimdnwyg]

1. SETI part 2?

That's how the SETI program worked. Millions of pcs around the world, adding in their unused processing power to help comb through the mountains of data.