Neutron Stars In The Computer Cloud: Einstein@Home Discovers 24 New Pulsars In Archival Data

The combined computing power of 200,000 private PCs helps astronomers take an inventory of the Milky Way. The Einstein@Home project connects home and office PCs of volunteers from around the world to a global supercomputer. Using this computer cloud, an international team lead by scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics and for Radio Astronomy analysed archival data from the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Using new search methods, the global computer network discovered 24 pulsars – extraordinary stellar remnants with extreme physical properties. These can be used as testbeds for Einstein’s general theory of relativity and could help to complete our picture of the pulsar population.

“We could only conduct our search thanks to the enormous computing power provided by the Einstein@Home volunteers,” says Benjamin Knispel, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Hannover, and lead author of the study now published in The Astrophysical Journal. “Through the participation of the public, we discovered 24 new pulsars in our Milky Way, which had previously been missed – and some of them are particularly interesting.”

Full Story: http://www.aei.mpg.de/480062/Einstein_Home_24PSRs_PMPS
Einstein@Home Home Page: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu