Tag Archives: SolarFlare

Murchison Widefield Array goes live, will study the sun, space junk, the early universe and more

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Murchison Widefield Array goes live, will study the sun, space junk, the early universe and more

We hope IBM's hardware is ready to chew through the feast of data it's going to receive, as the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope is officially open for business science. Located in the outback on the same site as the Australia SKA Pathfinder, it's one of three "precursor" programs that'll help steer future development of the extra powerful Square Kilometer Array. The MWA low-frequency telescope has plenty of work to be getting on with, and some of its first tasks include gazing into the sun to observe solar flares, storms and other activity, as well as scanning the Milky Way for the likes of "black holes and exploding stars." It'll also look into the tracking of hazardous space garbage using FM radio waves that are lost to the void, and explore the early life of the universe as far back as 13 billion years. According to Curtin University's Professor Tingay, the MWA's commendable work ethic (read: data quality) means we could see initial results from some of these projects "in as little as three months' time."

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Alt-week 9.8.12: Moon farming, self powered health monitors and bringing a 50,000 year-old girl to life

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Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

Altweek 9812 Moon farming, self powered health monitors and bringing a 50,000 yearold girl to life

Some weeks things get a little science heavy, sometimes it's a little on their weird side, and there's usually a bit of space travel involved, but these week's trend seems to be "mind-blowing." Want to grow carrots on the Moon? We got you covered. How about bringing a 50,000 year-old ancient human back to life? Sure, no biggie. Oh but what about a solar eruption that reaches some half a million miles in height. We've got the video. No, really we have. Mind blown? This is alt-week.

Continue reading Alt-week 9.8.12: Moon farming, self powered health monitors and bringing a 50,000 year-old girl to life

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Alt-week 9.8.12: Moon farming, self powered health monitors and bringing a 50,000 year-old girl to life originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Sep 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM cluster powers Murchison Widefield Array’s radio telescope, answers mysteries of the universe faster than ever (video)

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IBM cluster powers Murchison Widefield Array's radio telescope, answers mysteries of the universe faster than ever video

Radio telescope operators have as much of a problem coping with the avalanche of data as getting that information in the first place. The Victoria University of Wellington is all too aware and is leaning on IBM for a powerful (if very tongue-tying) iDataPlex dx360 M3 compute cluster to sift through the deluge at the upcoming Murchison Widefield Array. Combined, the 4,096 array antennas probing deep space and solar atmospherics will have the Xeon-based cluster tackling signal data to the tune of 8GB per second, and about 50TB per day -- that's a Nexus 7's worth of astronomy faster than you can sneeze, folks. A 10Gbps network connection will feed the results to Perth to save scientists a roughly 435-mile trek. Construction is still in mid-stride, but the $51 million Australian ($52.2 million US) being spent on the Murchison array may be worthwhile if it helps solve the riddles of star formation and solar flares.

Continue reading IBM cluster powers Murchison Widefield Array's radio telescope, answers mysteries of the universe faster than ever (video)

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IBM cluster powers Murchison Widefield Array's radio telescope, answers mysteries of the universe faster than ever (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 20:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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‘Extreme’ class solar flare heading toward Earth, hopefully bringing nothing but auroras

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Yesterday, a solar flare set off from the sun, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME) heading toward Earth, and it's set to make an appearance in our fair skies this Saturday. While the wave of charged particles headed our way is much weaker than the most powerful solar flares (like the X28+ gust from 2003), it ranks in the extreme (X) class, and it's already caused a wave of UV radiation that interfered with radio signals, not to mention an uptake in solar protons swarming around Earth. According to SpaceWeather.com, the flare could cause some geomagnetic storms, which could endanger satellites and astronauts in space in addition to possibly interfering with communication signals. That (relatively minor) risk aside, those of you living up north could be in for a pretty sweet light show, so check the skies for the aurora borealis.

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'Extreme' class solar flare heading toward Earth, hopefully bringing nothing but auroras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees

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Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

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This week we swing by some superhero news, look at how solar panels might shape up in the future, explore a Lego forest and see how to grab dark matter just using some household gold and strands of DNA. Not only that, we discover how the sun likes to celebrate the fourth of July with its own firework display. This is alt / week

Continue reading Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees

Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceTechnabob, Space, PhysOrg, Wired, Wired (2), Lego Festival  | Email this | Comments