What is MilkyWay@home?
Milkyway@Home uses the BOINC platform to harness volunteered computing resources, creating a highly accurate three dimensional model of the Milky Way galaxy using data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This project enables research in both astroinformatics and computer science.
In computer science, the project is investigating different optimization methods which are resilient to the fault-prone, heterogeneous and asynchronous nature of Internet computing; such as evolutionary and genetic algorithms, as well as asynchronous newton methods. While in astroinformatics, Milkyway@Home is generating highly accurate three dimensional models of the Sagittarius stream, which provides knowledge about how the Milky Way galaxy was formed and how tidal tails are created when galaxies merge.
Milkyway@Home is a joint effort between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's departments of Computer Science and Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy. Feel free to contact us via our forums, or email astro[at]cs.lists.rpi[dot]edu.
Read more on our Science Page, or check out our YouTube Channel!
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Social Media
People
Milkyway@Home is currently run by:- Travis Desell, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of North Dakota
- Heidi Newberg, Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Malik Magdon-Ismail, Professor of Computer Science
- Carlos Varela, Associate Professor of Computer Science
- Boleslaw Szymanski, Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science
- Jake Weiss, Postdoctoral Researcher in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Eric Mendelsohn, Graduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Blurf, Volunteer Forum Moderator
- Siddhartha Shelton, PhD Physics
- Matthew Newby, Adjunct Faculty in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Jeffery Thompson, Graduate Research Assistant in Physics, Apllied Physics, and Astronomy
- Matt Arsenault, Graduate Research Assistant in Physics
- Benjamin Willet, Postdoctoral Researcher in Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
- Nathan Cole, Graduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
- Maia Marchetti, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Adam Susser, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Jake Bauer, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
- Steve Ulins, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics
- Colin Rice, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics
- Shane Reilly, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Computer Science
- Joe Doran, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Computer Science
- Brian Chitester, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Computer Science
- Dave Przybylo, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Computer Science
- John Vickers, Undergraduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
- Anthony Waters, Graduate Research Assistant in Computer Science
- Clayton Rayment, Graduate Research Assistant in Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
Funding
Milkway@home is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendtions expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Individual grants are listed on the information page.
User of the Day
iczerjones
I'm a computer hardware engineer from Illinois, USA. I live for technology and the furthering of my understanding of the world through it and...
News
New Runs for Milkyway Nbody (10/03/2019)
Hello all,
I am writing to let you all know that new runs for milkyway_nbody have been put up. Two of our runs have been taken down and replaced with two new ones. The runs that are currently up are the following:
-de_nbody_08_06_2019_v176_40k__dataExpand__3
-de_nbody_10_03_2019_v176_40k__dataExpand__5
-de_nbody_10_03_2019_v176_40k__dataExpand__6
Thank you all for your continued support.
-Eric
3 Oct 2019, 15:14:07 UTC
· Discuss
10/3/2019 Overnight Server Maintenance
The server will be restarted overnight on 10/3/2019 at 9:00 PM EST
Downtime is expected no more than 2 hours.
Thank You
Jeff
2 Oct 2019, 14:16:50 UTC
· Discuss
Single-threaded Nbody deprecated
Hello all,
I am writing to inform you all that the single-threaded Nbody application has been temporarily deprecated. We may bring back the single-threaded app if the multi-threaded app begins causing problems. As always, please let us know if you experience any difficulties with the application. Thank you all for your support.
-Eric
24 Sep 2019, 17:59:05 UTC
· Discuss
Multi-threaded N-body is back
Hello everyone,
We decided to once again provide support for the milkyway_nbody multi-threaded application. If you discover any issues with the new application, please do not hesitate to contact us so that we may expeditiously resolve them. Thank you all for your continued support.
-Eric
17 Sep 2019, 19:56:29 UTC
· Discuss
UPDATE: NO Scheduled Downtime Thursday 9/12/19 Evening
Hi everyone,
The Milkyway server will be down this Thursday, 9/12/2019 starting at 4PM. The server should be back up by midnight. You will not be able to download or return workunits during this time, and the website will also be down. Any issues/questions can be directed at our email milkyway@cs.rpi.edu while the server is down.
- Tom
9 Sep 2019, 16:22:51 UTC
· Discuss
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