News & Features 2019
NAS Visualization Tops Most Beautiful Science GIFs in 2019
Scientific American magazine selected a video from an "exquisitely detailed simulation" by NAS Division researchers as one of their most beautiful science GIFs in 2019. This first-of-a-kind simulation of the Orion spacecraft’s launch abort system (LAS), run on the Electra supercomputer, helps reduce risk and ensure the safety of astronauts if a life-threatening event arises during launch. Orion will carry the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024 and return them safely back to Earth. Watch video
Read more on simulation of an Orion spacecraft launch abort scenario
It’s a Wrap! NAS Science and Engineering Shines at Supercomputing Show
NAS Division researchers captivated audiences at SC19 with spectacular images and videos that told the story of their science and engineering achievements made possible by high-performance computing.
Illuminating the Gas Between Galaxies with Supercomputing
Galaxies contain millions of stars, and they grow by pulling in gas to make even more. How gases ebb and flow between galaxies and their surroundings is an essential question that NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer is helping to answer for researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University.
Read more on how supercomputers and data from Hubble are used to find gas hidden between galaxies
NASA’s All-Electric X-57 X-Plane: A Cleaner Way to Fly
Just as electric cars are becoming more and more commonplace on our roads each day, aerospace engineers are seeking to make electric air transportation a reality. NASA engineers are using supercomputers to accurately predict flight conditions for the agency’s X-57 Maxwell electric experimental aircraft’s flight simulator.
A Cloudy Martian Night, Through the Eyes of a Supercomputer
As NASA’s Curiosity rover makes its way over the surface of Mars, it’s sometimes accompanied by clouds drifting by in the sky above. The NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center provides Mars researchers with the necessary computing power to produce high-resolution data visualizations to study how the planet’s atmosphere works, in fine detail.
Scientists Run Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Simulations at Groundbreaking Resolutions on NASA Supercomputers
Using NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility and NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) supercomputers, NASA and university scientists are running simulations with a new coupled atmosphere-ocean model to study swirls of ocean water called eddies.
Read more on how NASA supercomputers are used to study Earth's oceans
From Wind to Data, in No Time Flat
Collaborating with supercomputing and visualization experts at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility, aerospace engineers linked wind-tunnel test data with the Pleiades supercomputer for near-real-time processing and display of pressure-sensitive paint data, to help speed spacecraft and aircraft design.
Google and NASA Achieve Quantum Supremacy
The advanced techniques needed for simulating quantum computations were developed with help from NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division experts and the Pleiades and Electra supercomputers.
Read more on NASA and Google's partnership on quantum computing research
Summit Simulates How Humans will 'Brake' During Mars Landing
Visualizations from the data visualization team at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division (using simulations run on Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Summit supercomputer) help NASA Langley researchers understand the complex interactions at play when descending to the red planet.
Photo of managers cutting the ribbon at the Modular Supercomputing Facility.
New Modular Supercomputing Facility Opens at NASA's Ames Research Center
The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division is celebrating the grand opening of its new modular supercomputing facility, built at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The facility houses the agency’s newest petascale supercomputer, named Aitken.
NASA Invites Media to the Grand Opening of Modular Supercomputing Facility
NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley invites members of the media to engage with NASA researchers and computer experts to learn more about the future of high-performance computing at the agency during the grand opening of its new modular supercomputing facility.
Read more on the Modular Supercomputing Facility grand opening
Tunguska Revisited: 111-Year-Old Mystery Impact Inspires New, More Optimistic Asteroid Predictions
NAS researchers modeled more than 50 million asteroid impact scenarios to reveal the most likely type of event that devastated Russia’s Tunguska region in 1908—the largest asteroid impact witnessed by modern humans. Their findings, reported in this month’s special issue of the journal Icarus, helped determine the average frequency of such events.
How Scientists Used NASA Data to Predict Appearance
July 2 Eclipse
Using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, Predictive Science Inc. ran a model over roughly two days on the Pleiades supercomputer at the NAS facility, in order predict how the magnetic field shapes the corona over time.
NAS Researcher Wins NASA Space Flight Awareness Award
Derek J. Dalle, a fluid mechanics researcher at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division, was the recipient of the agency’s Silver Snoopy Award for outstanding performance and contribution to space flight safety and mission success with his work on the large and complex SLS booster separation aerodynamic database.
Study Predicts More Long-Term Sea Level Rise from Greenland Ice
Greenland's melting ice sheet could generate more sea level rise than previously thought if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase and warm the atmosphere at their current rate, according to a new modeling study run on supercomputers at NAS and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Preparing Scientific Applications for Exascale Computing
Computer scientists from the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division participated in a hackathon that included NASA, the Department of Energy, and supercomputing leaders in academia and industry, with the goal to port scientific applications from traditional CPUs to graphics processing units using the latest version of OpenMP.
Simulations Give NASA Code Green Light for Space Launch System Testing
Proof-of-concept tests of NASA’s Loci/CHEM flow solver on the Pleiades supercomputer validate the solver’s accuracy, clearing the way for tests for the agency’s next-gen Space Launch System’s launch environment.
Learn more about modeling of the Space Launch System environment during ignition
Hammering Away at the Dynamic Stall Problem to Build Better Rotorcraft
Continuous advances in NASA’s modeling and simulation tools, along with the Electra supercomputer, help rotorcraft design engineers build safer, more efficient aircraft in less time and for less money.
Learn more about modeling and simulation for rotorcraft design
Don’t Panic: Scientists are Practicing for a Killer Asteroid Impact
NAS Division researcher Lorien Wheeler modeled millions of potential impact scenarios for a tabletop exercise exploring possible damage by a fictional asteroid, at the International Academy of Astronautics’ Planetary Defense Conference April 29–May 3, 2019 in College Park, Maryland.
NASA Researcher on the Driving Force Behind Aerospace Innovation
Marie Denison, a research scientist in the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division, talks about her work in computational physics and the importance of research collaboration. Denison will be a speaker at the Women of Silicon Valley event May 2-3, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Read more on Marie Denison's work in computational aerosciences
Spacetime Simulation And The Discovery Of Gravitational Waves
Simulations run on NASA supercomputers and stunning visualizations by the NAS team were key to the research leading to the first-ever gravitational wave detection.
Learn more about cool visualizations of the first gravitational wave detections
Galactic Center Visualization Delivers Star Power
By combining NASA Ames supercomputer simulations with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a new immersive, ultra-high-definition visualization provides a fresh perspective on what is happening in and around the center of the Milky Way.
Modular Design Increases Energy Efficiency
SCW Editor Robert Roe speaks to Bill Thigpen, Advanced Computing Branch Chief for the NAS Division, to get an update on NASA's energy-efficient modular supercomputing approach.
What Machine Learning Can Tell Us About Climate Change
A NASA study shines new light on how climate change may affect the Amazon rainforest. Machine learning expert Kamalika Das, at NASA's Ames Research Center, ran her simulations on the Pleiades supercomputer to develop her optimization-based models.
NCCS and NAS Enable ‘Pulsar in a Box’ Simulations
NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) and NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Facility supercomputers enabled groundbreaking simulations of spinning neutron stars—called pulsars—that trace the paths of charged particles in magnetic and electric fields surrounding the stars.
NAS Innovations Highlighted in NASA Tech Briefs
NAS Division researcher Patricia Ventura Diaz' stunning visualization of a concept air taxi graced the cover of the January 2019 issue of Tech Briefs NASA is studying Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles for revolutionizing human air transportation. Also featured in this issue: NAS aerospace engineer Stuart Rogers' Pegasus 5 software transforms how commercial jetliners are built.
How to Escape a Black Hole: Simulations Provide New Clues to What’s Driving Powerful Plasma Jets
New simulations run on supercomputers at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, led by researchers working at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, combine decades-old theories to provide new insight about the driving mechanisms of plasma jets that allow them to steal energy from black holes’ powerful gravitational fields and propel it into space.
Solar Flares: From Emergence to Eruption
A team of scientists has, for the first time, used a single, cohesive computer model to simulate the entire life cycle of a solar flare. The model ran on supercomputers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division.
