“The U.S. Air Force will get new clear snapshots of orbiting
space junk thanks to a powerful University of New Mexico-run
supercomputer being turned on today. The IBM computer will use its
computational muscle to sharpen fuzzy images taken by a mountaintop
telescope in Hawaii, telling Air Force officers whether an orbiting
object is a foreign satellite or a piece of space junk.”
“The Albuquerque center, in an old auto dealership at Central
and University NE, boasts the fastest computer ever built by wiring
together a cluster of personal computers running the free Linux
operating system. In rankings released earlier this month, it edged
out a similar machine built at Sandia National Laboratories that
held the previous mark for “world’s fastest” in its class.”
“The addition of the new IBM machine and the Linux cluster
to the Maui center will give it a total computing horsepower of
more than 1 trillion calculations per second, Gilfeather said.
That’s enough to vault the UNM-run center into the top 10
supercomputer centers in the world, joining Sandia and Los Alamos
National Laboratory on the prestigious list.”
Complete Story [ Free registration required ]