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NAS FEATURED NEWS
Spectacular Black Hole Merger Simulated on Columbia Supercomputer
Massive black hole calculations used to further our understanding of the origins of the universe have been made possible by the Columbia supercomputer.
08.09.06
Researchers at the NASA Goddard Gravitational Astrophysics Lab in Greenbelt, Maryland recently made an important breakthrough in simulating the merger of two equal-mass, non-spinning black holes, using a special 2,048-processor (CPU) cluster of the 10,240-CPU Columbia supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility.
Caption: (Above right) Frame from a 3D simulation of gravitational waves produced by merging black holes, representing the largest astrophysical calculation ever performed on a NASA supercomputer. The honeycomb structures are the contours of the strong gravitational field near the black holes. Credit: C. Henze, NAS Division
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Employing the 2,048-CPU cluster, the Goddard team used new, more accurate techniques to predict the profusion of gravitational wave signatures produced by the black holes over time as they approach each other and collide. According to researchers, these mergers produce more energy than all the stars in the visible universe combined and represent a first step in achieving the ultimate goal -- to calculate the gravitational waves from merging unequal mass black holes with spin, which are a key source for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission, known as LISA.
"Access to the 2,048-CPU system has been essential to developing our work at this unprecedented level," said lead investigator Joan Centrella. "Using the power of Columbia, we were able to run several different cases and show that the black holes end up on the same trajectories and produce the same, universal waveform."
Using the massive amounts of data generated on the 2,048 cluster, NAS scientific visualization expert Chris Henze was able to capture, parallelize, and render the data needed to produce a very-high-resolution, 3D visualization of two black holes merging.
Centrella's results are of such importance to the science community that this past spring NASA held a media event, featuring a "Hollywood-style" animation of two galaxies coming together, created by NAS animation specialists Marco Librero and Ryan Coburn.
Caption: (Left) Frame from animation showing two spiral galaxies, each containing a massive black hole at the center, in the early stages of a merge. Credit: M. Librero/R. Coburn, NAS Division
(Click on image to enlarge.)
+ View animation (4.6MB - no audio)
For more information on NAS' scientific visualization services contact:
Chris Henze,
Christopher.E.Henze@nasa.gov
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/home/"
- Jill Dunbar
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