Supercomputers

PHOTO: The Columbia Supercomputer at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Facility at Ames Research Center

Columbia Supercomputer at NASA is a cluster of 20 machines, each with 512 processors, each of which processes two data streams concurrently. Named in honor of the crew who died in the Columbia disaster, Columbia Supercomputer, built by Silicon Graphics for NASA, has as its main purpose to simulate the violent collision and merger of spiral galaxies that lead to the formation of elliptical galaxies. It is connected to the NASA Research and Engineering Network and was installed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility in 2004.

Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s and were designed primarily by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation (CDC). In the 1970s Cray established his own company, Cray Research and took over the supercomputer market with his new designs and held the top spot in supercomputing for five years (1985–1990). In the 1980s many competitors entered the market and many of these disappeared in the mid-1990’s supercomputer market crash. Currently supercomputers are custom-designed and produced by companies such as Cray, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Supercomputers are used for calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling such as computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals, and physical simulations such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion.

As of November 2009, the fastest supercomputer in the world is the Cray XT5 Jaguar system at National Center for Computational Sciences with more than 19000 computers and 224,000 processing elements, based on standard AMD processors. The fastest heterogeneous machine is IBM Roadrunner, a cluster of 3240 computers, each with 40 processing cores and includes both AMD and Cell processors.

The SGI Altix platform was selected due to a positive experience with Kalpana, a single Altix 512-CPU system operated by NASA Ames which was integrated into the Columbia supercomputer system.

In November 2009, the AMD Opteron-based Cray XT5 Jaguar at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was announced as the fastest operational supercomputer, with a sustained processing rate of 1.759 PFLOPS.

As against supercomputers, a quasi-supercomputer is like Google's search engine system with estimated total processing power of between 126 and 316 teraflops, as of April 2004. In June 2006 the New York Times estimated that the Googleplex and its server farms contain 450,000 servers. According to recent estimates, the processing power of Google's cluster might reach from 20 to 100 petaflops.

Amundsen-Scott Mars Station

This is a photo of Amundsen-Scott Mars Station (Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station) in Antarctica. A full moon and 25 second exposure allowed sufficient light into this photo taken at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station during the long Antarctic night. The new research station can be seen at far left, the power plant in the center and the old mechanic's garage in the lower right of the photo. Red lights are used outside during the winter darkness as their spectrum does not pollute the sky, allowing scientists to conduct astrophysical studies without artificial light interference. A background of green light can be seen in the photo. This is the Aurora Australis, which dances through the sky virtually all the time during the long Antarctic night in winter. The photo's surreal appearance makes the station look like a futuristic Mars Station.

Français: Vue de la station américaine Amundsen-Scott au pôle sud, éclairée par la pleine lune, durant la longue nuit polaire. La nouvelle station est visible tout à gauche, la centrale électrique au centre et l'ancien atelier de mécanique en bas à droite. Durant la nuit polaire, seule la lumière rouge est utilisée pour limiter la pollution lumineuse et ne pas perturber les expériences d'astrophysique menées dans la base. La lumière verte est due aux aurores australes qui sont quasi-permanentes durant la nuit polaire. L'apparence surréaliste de la photo fait penser à une base futuriste sur Mars.

Date: July 2005

Author: Photo by Chris Danals, National Science Foundation

Original photo specifications/details: Dimension = 3072 × 2048 pixels, file size = 1.85 MB, type = image/jpeg.

About the photo when downloaded: Click on the photo to see the photo that you can download. It is reduced in pixels and file size. It is good enough for ordinary purposes. However, if you need the original dimension and size as above for high quality applications, copy of the original can be sent to you by email for a handling charge US$ 2 only through Paypal, if you record your requirement with email in the comment box.

Permission for reusing this image/ licensing: This photo is the work of a National Science Foundation employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. Federal Government, this is a public domain photo. You are free to download and use this photo without asking for any specific permission. However, a link back to this site or post URL will be highly appreciated.

Fryxellsee, Antarctic blue ice covering Lake Fryxell

The blue ice covering Lake Fryxell, in the Transantarctic Mountains, comes from glacial melt-water from the Canada Glacier and other smaller glaciers. The freshwater stays on top of the lake and freezes, sealing in briny water below.

Français: Antarctique: La glace bleue couvrant le Lac Fryxell, dans la Chaîne Transantarctique, vient des eaux de fonte du Glacier Canada et d'autres glaciers plus petits. L'eau fraîche se trouve au sommet du lac et gèle, scellant une eau saumâtre située en-dessous.

Source Date: 10.12.2002

Source Author: Joe Mastroianni, National Science Foundation

Permission for reusing this image: This image is a work of a National Science Foundation employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. Federal Government, the image is in the public domain images and can be copied from here and used by any person.

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$1 currency note series of 1917 of the United States

This is a public domain image of $1 currency note series of 1917 of the United States. Image dimension 640 × 279 pixels, file size: 62.3 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg, a unit of currency issued by the United States of America. It is solely a work of the United States government, is ineligible for copyright, and is therefore in the public domain. Fraudulent use of this image is punishable under applicable counterfeiting laws. Both one-dollar coins and notes are issued currently. But the note form is more common. In the past, paper money was occasionally issued in denominations less than a dollar (fractional currency) and gold coins were issued for circulation up to the value of $20 (known as the "double eagle", discontinued in the 1930s).

Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space

American Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA photographed on April 27, 1959. The “Freedom 7” spacecraft boosted by Mercury-Redstone rocket for the MR-3 mission made the first manned suborbital flight and Astronaut Shepard became the first American in space.

This photo shows Shepard and Freedom 7 after recovery. A recovery helicopter that had been watching Freedom 7 lifted Shepard into the helicopter (HMM-262 Seabat), after he splashed down and came out. Both the Freedom 7 and the astronaut were then flown to the deck of the nearby recovery carrier, the USS Lake Champlain. Freedom 7, now on display in the lobby of the Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center, at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, was placed there after Shepard's death in 1998.

Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard

The above photo is of the May 5, 1961 launch of Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard on the United States' first manned sub-orbital spaceflight.

Mercury-Redstone 3 was a human crewed space mission launched on May 5, 1961 using a Redstone rocket, from Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Mercury capsule was named “Freedom 7” which performed a suborbital flight piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space as a result of this mission. The flight lasted less than 16 minutes and attained an altitude of just over 187 km.

Unlike the earlier Soviet Vostok 1 flight (of erstwhile USSR, now Russia), Shepard did not orbit the earth, but simply went up and down. Such a launch required a less powerful rocket and simpler guidance. He did, however, become the first astronaut to safely return to Earth inside his vehicle, whereas the Soviet cosmonaut parachuted out of his vehicle prior to landing. The Russian Vostok 1’s passenger Yuri Gagarin was the first human being to go to the space.

Seascape Valentine Card 1900

Whitney Valentine, 1887

This card was produced after Esther Howland sold her New England Valentine Company to the George C. Whitney Company in 1881 (owned by Charles Whitney, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.

Valentine card 1862

St Valentine's Day card, embossed and printed in colour, with silk panel and printed message, "My Dearest Miss, I send thee a kiss", addressed to Miss Jenny Lane (or Lowe, or Love) of Crostwight Hall, Smallburgh, Norfolk. This card is of high antique value. Send this Valentine card of 1862 for Valentines Day. It is worth a hundred valentine greeting cards you can buy now.