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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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

With Ongoing Support from:

• 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

With previous support from:

• 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.

[AF>Libristes] Jip

New Separation Runs 1/6/2021
Hello Everyone,

I have put up the following separation runs:

de_modfit_80_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_81_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_82_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_83_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_84_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_85_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4
de_modfit_86_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_4

And I have taken down the following separation runs:

de_modfit_80_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3
de_modfit_81_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3
de_modfit_82_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3
de_modfit_83_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3
de_modfit_84_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3
de_modfit_86_bundle4_4s_south4s_bgset_3

The new runs are copies of the previous bgset_3 runs and bgset_2 runs, in order to get yet another set of data to compare against. In the last set of runs, Stripe 84 didn't seem to cause problems like it did in the bgset_2 runs, but Stripe 85 did. As before, I will keep a close eye on these forums for a few weeks in order to see whether you are having any trouble with some of the Stripes.

You may continue to see workunits from bgset_2 runs for the next few days as workunits finish up and complete validation. This is expected and normal. You may start seeing the new runs as soon as your machine downloads new workunits from the server.

Thank you all for your continued support with this project. I hope you are staying safe in the pandemic world that we're stuck in for a little while longer.

Best,
Tom
6 Jan 2021, 19:15:48 UTC · Discuss

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New Milkyway Badges Online
Hello Everyone,

I have updated the badges that we have for this project, including badges up to 20 years and 100 billion credits. You can find the new list of badges below:



Thank you to everyone who has put time into this project. An especially big thank you to people that we had to make badges for -- I've already seen an 11 year and a 13 year badge. We also have a couple users who are approaching the previous limit of the 10B credit badge.

- Tom
5 Jan 2021, 18:21:18 UTC · Discuss

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Continued NBody Runs (07/29/2020)
Hey everyone,

The last set of NBody runs have just converged beautifully. We are currently working on writing the paper to publish these results. In the meantime, we will be replacing these runs with another set:
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__4
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__5
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__6

Thank you all so much for your support. We would not be able to write this paper without your continued assistance.

-Eric
17 Aug 2020, 16:35:48 UTC · Discuss

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New Runs for MilkyWay@home Nbody Simulations (07/29/2020)
Hey everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know that new Nbody runs have been put up on MW@home. The last set of runs started converging nicely, so we are confident this next set of runs will converge as well. The names of these runs are:
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__1
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__2
-de_nbody_07_29_2020_v176_40k__data__3

Please let us know if you have any trouble with these runs. Thank you all for your continued support.

-Eric
30 Jul 2020, 0:06:07 UTC · Discuss

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Scheduled Internet Outage July 28th,2020
Hey everyone,

On July 28th, our server will be temporarily inaccessible due to a scheduled campus-wide internet outage. As such, job queues may not update for the day. However, everything should return to working order by the next day. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

-Eric
25 Jul 2020, 18:02:29 UTC · Discuss

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