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

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

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.

User of the Day

MarkK

Living, working, cycling in S Florida. Attended University of Florida and University of Miami School of Law. Founding partner at Kaire and Heffernan...

News

New runs of MilkyWay Nbody out
Hello all,
I just wanted to let you know that new runs for the newest version of the MilkyWay@home Nbody program have just been released. The names of these new runs are:
-de_nbody_04_23_2019_v176_40k__data__1
-de_nbody_04_23_2019_v176_40k__data__2
-de_nbody_04_23_2019_v176_40k__data__3
I apologize for any inconveniences over the last few days. If you have any issues with these runs, please let me know on this thread and I will try to sort them out as quickly as I can.
Just so you know, some of the changes we made for this nbody version take runs that would've taken extremely long times to compute and return success immediately. As such, credit for nbody may be a little strange until the server recognizes the new average runtime. Also note that there is no longer support for multi-threaded.
Again, thank you all for your continued support.
-Eric Mendelsohn
23 Apr 2019, 21:07:28 UTC · Discuss

New version of MilkyWay Nbody
Hello all,
We have just released a new version of the MilkyWay@home Nbody application. We have not put up new runs for this yet. We will be putting up new runs next week or the following week. Thank you for your support!
-Eric Mendelsohn
23 Apr 2019, 15:16:54 UTC · Discuss

New Separation Runs
Hey everyone,

There was a problem with the previous separation runs that was causing some command lines to overflow. I have changed the bundle size of the new runs, so that shouldn't be a problem anymore. The previous runs have been taken down.

The names of the new runs are:

de_modfit_80_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_81_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_82_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_83_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_84_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_85_bundle4_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_86_bundle4_4s_south4s_0

These new workunits will crunch a little faster than the previous versions, and credits are assigned accordingly.

Thank you all for your patience during this transition period!

Tom
16 Apr 2019, 17:58:10 UTC · Discuss

New Separation Runs
Hey all,

I just put up new separation runs on the server. The names of these runs are:

de_modfit_80_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_81_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_82_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_83_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_84_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_85_bundle5_4s_south4s_0
de_modfit_86_bundle5_4s_south4s_0

If you have any issues with these specific runs, please post about them here. I will do my best to help you in any way I can.

Thank you for your continued support,
Tom
12 Apr 2019, 17:16:12 UTC · Discuss

New MilkyWay@home Scientist
Hey Everyone!

My name is Tom Donlon. I have worked with Prof. Newberg for several years now on a variety of topics involving n-body simulations and the origin of galactic substructure. I will be transitioning to working as a graduate student and will be working on a project involving the separation application for my thesis. As such I will be providing support for this application and learning how to maintain the server from Jake. Please be gentle during my transition.

Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to getting to know all of you.

Best,
Tom
10 Apr 2019, 18:06:14 UTC · Discuss

... more

News is available as an RSS feed RSS