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Details of Blue cosmic gene

After to have scaled the summit of the more powerful supercomputers the world, Blue Gene obtains hour also the faster palm of Europe. The record goes to a system "from the installed blue gene" from IBM near the "Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy" (ASTRON), one of more celebrates European astronomical organizations.

The new supercomputer BlueGene/L, introduced yesterday from the Dutch minister for the instruction and science Maria van der Hoeven, will constitute the heart of a new type of developed radio telescope from ASTRON and will supply a power of 27,4 calculation of Teraflops. "the great challenge that ASTRON is facing in the field of the search on the formation of the universe demands the elaboration of an amount of data without previous", has asserted Dave Turek, vice-president of the IBM field Deep Computing.

The Blue Gene commissioned from ASTRON will collect and analyze to the information collections from its net of "telescopes software", call Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). To difference of it puts into effect them observatories, that they use great optical mirrors or parabolas radio in order to aim the more distant galaxies, ASTRON will use more than 25.000 simple antennas radio, distributed through all the Low Countries and the German State of the Sassonia Lowland. Blue Gene will arrange and interpret marks them coming from from all these antennas in real time.

LOFAR is in a position to picking up marks them distant until 13 billions of light years from the Earth, that it will allow it to go back backwards in the time until the birth of the first stars and galaxies after the formation of the universe, that is famous event like Big Bang. A consortium of university, institutes of search and companies will start a series of programs of search with the telescope when this becomes operating, in 2006.

The antennas radio will be connected by means of one net to fiber optics to the supercomputer, placed near the Computing Centre of the University of Groningen. Blue Gene will elaborate a quantitative one of equal data to approximately 800 gigabyte to the second: in practical mass of information will second deal every one equivalent to that one memorizzata on 800 CD or 20 DVD.

The system, constituted from 12.000 processori PowerPC, occupies a surface of 6 meters squared, hung 5 tons and consumes 150 KW. "it can be defined, if compared to the traditional supercomputers, a compact machine and to low energetic consumption", it has asserted IBM. Towards the end of the slid year the colossus of Armonk has announced the development in Europe of an other supercomputer, called MareNostrum, than when completed Tflops will be in a position to milling 40. This news has been disclosed from the periodical "Computer science Point".