Donate your computing power to map the Milky Way

PCs Around the World Unite To Map the Milky Way

"At this very moment, tens of thousands of home computers around the world are quietly working together to solve the largest and most basic mysteries of our galaxy.

"Enthusiastic and inquisitive volunteers from Africa to Australia are donating the computing power of everything from decade-old desktops to sleek new netbooks to help computer scientists and astronomers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute map the shape of our Milky Way galaxy. Now, just this month, the collected computing power of these humble home computers has surpassed one petaflop, a computing speed that surpasses the world’s second fastest supercomputer."

This "crowd-sourcing" approach was used by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence early on, and more recently was responsible for finding a new largest Mersenne Prime.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)