News 2015
NASA at the 2015 AGU Fall Meeting
The NASA booth (# 335) at the 2015 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA, will highlight advances in Earth science, planetary science, and heliophysics. Booth components will include hyperwall presentations, science flash talks, demonstrations, tutorials, and a wealth of printed material. Browse NAS AGU Program
NASA High-Performance Computing Shines at Annual Supercomputing Conference
Scientists and engineers who use the NAS facility’s HPC resources showcased their recent projects at SC15, the international supercomputing conference held last week in Austin, Texas. Visitors to the NASA exhibit were captivated by spectacular images and videos from high-fidelity simulations supporting the agency’s missions in aeronautics, space exploration, climate research, and cutting-edge science.
NASA Invites Media to Tour Quantum Computing Lab, Talk to Experts
For the first time, members of the news media are invited to tour the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) located at the NAS facility at Ames Research Center on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. Media will hear from a panel of computer scientists involved in NASA’s long-term quantum computing research activity, who will speak about its importance to the agency, the variety of real-world applications being studied, and where quantum computing may take us in the future.
NAS Team Receives SC15 Test of Time Award for 1991 Paper Introducing the NAS Parallel Benchmarks
The SC15 Test of Time Award Committee has presented this year’s award to a team of NAS computer scientists for their 1991 paper “The NAS Parallel Benchmarks - Summary and Preliminary Results.” After their introduction 24 years ago, the benchmarks quickly became an industry standard, and continue to be used widely today.
SC15 Releases Video Explaining Importance of High Performance Computing to NASA
In this video from the SC15 “HPC Matters” series, NAS Division aerospace engineer Shishir Pandya explains in a nutshell how physics calculations performed on NASA supercomputers, like Pleiades, help scientists and engineers figure out how to design fuel-efficient passenger airplanes.
Watch video on using supercomputers to design fuel-efficient airplanes.
New D-Wave 2X System with 1000+ Qubit Processor Installed at NASA’s Ames Research Center
D-Wave Systems Inc. announced that it has entered into a new agreement with Google and USRA for the installation of a succession of quantum systems. A new D-Wave 2X™ system is now operational at the NAS facility to support NASA’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) project.
New Galaxy Simulation Study Reported in Nature
An international team of scientists has run billion-year galaxy formation simulations on the Pleiades supercomputer. Their methods and findings were published today in a Nature Letter.
Behind the Scenes at NASA's Computer Powerhouse
Reporter Mark Noack chats with NAS Division Chief Piyush Mehrotra about the high demand for processing time on the Pleiades supercomputer to crunch science and engineering data for NASA missions on Earth and in space.
Spotty Sunspot Record Gets a Makeover
A 24-minute, high-resolution science documentary about the dynamics of the Sun features data-driven visualizations from science work done on NASA’s Pleiades and NCSA’s Blue Waters supercomputers. Narrated by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, “Solar Superstorms” explores the inner workings of our star and the explosive magnetic eruptions from its surface.
Influential NAS Parallel Benchmarks Paper Selected for SC15 Test of Time Award
The Supercomputing Conference (SC15) Test of Time Award Committee has recognized the 1991 paper “The NAS Parallel Benchmarks – Summary and Preliminary Results” with the SC15 Test of Time Award for this year. The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) were developed in response to NASA’s increasing involvement with massively parallel architectures and the need for a more rational procedure to select supercomputers to support agency missions. The NPBs quickly became an industry standard and have since been implemented in many modern programming paradigms.
Find out about the NAS Parallel Benchmarks history and award.
NASA Releases Detailed Global Climate Change Projections
A new dataset from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) research platform shows several predictions of global climate change under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The dataset combines historical measurements with data from climate simulations using the best available computer models to provide forecasts of how the temperature and precipitation on Earth might change through the year 2100.
Here, There, and Everywhere: The Next Quantum Leap
NAS Division scientist Eleanor Rieffel joined other top quantum experts at the 2015 World Science Festival to help mere mortals understand the “weird world of quantum physics.”
Chinese Supercomputer ‘Too Slow’ to Compete in Race for Hypersonic Weapons, Scientist Warns
A supercomputer used by China to develop a hypersonic space weapon was too slow, having a processing speed only a tenth of that of its American counterpart—NAS’s Pleiades supercomputer—according to a researcher involved in the highly sensitive project.
NASA-Funded Study Finds Two Solar Wind Jets in the Heliosphere
NASA-funded simulation research found that the giant bubble around our solar system, the heliosphere, is much shorter and smaller than previously thought, dominated by two jets shooting out the north and south poles of the sun. The simulation ran on the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility.
Pleiades Supercomputer Performance Leaps to 5.35 Petaflops with Latest Expansion
NASA’s flagship supercomputer, Pleiades, was recently expanded with 1,008 new nodes utilizing Intel Xeon E5-2680v3 (Haswell) processors. The expansion brings the total number of Pleiades’ Haswell nodes to 2,088 and increases the system’s
Tales from the Superbowl of Astronomy
National Geographic’s coverage of the 225th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society includes a brief on the hunt for exomoons by Pleiades user David Kipping, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Kipping searches for exomoons in data gathered by NASA’ Kepler spacecraft.
Read about the hunt for exomoons by Pleiades user David Kipping.
NASA Observatories Take an Unprecedented Look into Superstar Eta Carinae
With the help of the Pleiades supercomputer, NASA scientists studying the binary star Eta Carinae have developed a 3D computer model using observational data collected by space telescopes over the last decade. The simulation revealed features of the star system never seen before, and helped researchers gain a better understanding of the complex interaction between the stellar winds surrounding the two stars.
Read about Eta Carinae simulatons using the Pleiades supercomputer.
Alien Earth Baking Under a Red Sun Spotted 470 Light Years Away
The Kepler Mission announces the 1,000th exoplanet discovered from data gathered by the space telescope, using the BLENDER software and the Pleiades supercomputer. Many of the planets discovered are too small to be identified by mass measurement, so Kepler scientists used Pleiades to process light curve data using statistical methods in their quest to find Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.
Read about Kepler's exoplanet discovery using the Pleiades supercomputer.
