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!
Join MilkyWay@Home
Already joined? Log in.
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
Sirius B
Hi Folks I'm a local system builder from Peterborough, England. Thanks to Team Canada, found another worthwhile project. Look forward to meeting...
News
New Runs for MilkyWay@home N-Body (2/10/2020)
We apologize once again, but it seems we have run into another error with the last set of runs. These runs will be replaced by the following runs:
-de_nbody_02_10_2020_v176_40k__data__1
-de_nbody_02_10_2020_v176_40k__data__2
-de_nbody_02_10_2020_v176_40k__data__3
Rest assured that these errors do not affect the ability of your computers to run the milkyway_nbody application and will not cause you to lose credit. Thank you for your patience and your continued support.
-Eric
10 Feb 2020, 17:29:29 UTC
· Discuss
New Runs for MilkyWay@home N-Body (2/6/2020)
Hello all,
I have put up some new runs for milkyway_nbody. Unfortunately, there was an error with last set of runs put up 3 days ago, so these runs will be replacing those:
-de_nbody_02_06_2020_v176_40k__data__1
-de_nbody_02_06_2020_v176_40k__data__2
-de_nbody_02_06_2020_v176_40k__data__3
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we once again thank you for your continued support.
-Eric
6 Feb 2020, 17:22:28 UTC
· Discuss
New Runs for MilkyWay@home N-Body (2/3/2020)
Hello all,
We have put up new runs for milkyway_nbody under the following names:
-de_nbody_02_03_2020_v176_40k__data__1
-de_nbody_02_03_2020_v176_40k__data__2
-de_nbody_02_03_2020_v176_40k__data__3
If any of these runs cause trouble to your computer, please let us know so that we may resolve any issues.
Thank you all for your support!
-Eric
3 Feb 2020, 21:40:55 UTC
· Discuss
New Runs for MilkyWay@home N-Body (1/15/2020)
Happy New Year everyone!
I hope you all had a fantastic new year's celebration. To start off the new year, I thought we should put up a few new runs for Nbody as the previous one have converged nicely. The new runs I put up are:
-de_nbody_01_15_2020_v176_40k__sim__7
-de_nbody_01_15_2020_v176_40k__sim__8
-de_nbody_01_15_2020_v176_40k__sim__9
Thank you all for your continued support, and I wish you all the best for the new decade.
-Eric
16 Jan 2020, 15:41:56 UTC
· Discuss
New Runs for MilkyWay@home N-Body (11/25/2019)
Hey all,
We are putting up the following new runs for MilkyWay@home N-body:
-de_nbody_11_25_2019_v176_40k__sim__4
-de_nbody_11_25_2019_v176_40k__sim__5
-de_nbody_11_25_2019_v176_40k__sim__6
In other news, we're almost ready to report our results from the last few parameter optimizations on the Orphan Stream. Thank you all for your support. We could not have gotten these results without your time and patience.
-Eric
26 Nov 2019, 1:36:19 UTC
· Discuss
... more
News is available as an RSS feed
©2020 Astroinformatics Group