Gaia@home: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
| (One intermediate revision by one other user not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Infobox software | {{Infobox software | ||
| name = Gaia@home | | name = Gaia@home | ||
| logo = [email protected] | | logo = [email protected] | ||
| screenshot = | |||
| screenshot = | | caption = | ||
| caption = | |||
| status = Active | | status = Active | ||
| category = Astronomy | | category = Astronomy | ||
| compute = CPU | | compute = CPU | ||
| dependencies = | | dependencies = BOINC | ||
| author = Astronomical Observatory Institute, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University | | author = Astronomical Observatory Institute, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University | ||
| developer = Gaia@home project team | | developer = Gaia@home project team | ||
| released | | released = {{Start date and age|2019|08|21}} | ||
| completed | | completed = No | ||
| discontinued | | discontinued = | ||
| operating system = Linux | | programming language = C, C++ | ||
| operating system = Linux, Windows, macOS | |||
| | | stats as of = {{Start date and age|2026|05|19}} | ||
| website = | | average performance = 6653.65 GigaFLOPS | ||
| active users = 199 | |||
| total users = 631 | |||
| active hosts = 579 | |||
| total hosts = 3609 | |||
| rac = | |||
| credit per day = | |||
| gpu performance = | |||
| cpu performance = | |||
| website = {{URL|https://gaiaathome.eu/}} | |||
| license = Free software | |||
}} | }} | ||
[http://gaiaathome.eu/gaiaathome/ '''''Gaia@home'''''] is a '''''[[wikipedia:Volunteer computing|volunteer distributed computing]]''''' project based on the | [http://gaiaathome.eu/gaiaathome/ '''''Gaia@home'''''] is a '''''[[wikipedia:Volunteer computing|volunteer distributed computing]]''''' project based on the BOINC middleware platform. The project was created by researchers from the Astronomical Observatory Institute at [[wikipedia:Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań|Adam Mickiewicz University]] in Poland to support astronomical research using data from the [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia]] space observatory mission operated by the [[wikipedia:European Space Agency|European Space Agency]] (ESA).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gaiaathome.eu/gaiaathome/ |title=Gaia@home |publisher=Gaia@home |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | ||
The project distributes computationally intensive astronomical calculations to volunteers around the world using the BOINC infrastructure. Gaia@home focuses primarily on celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics, and the study of long-period comets and stellar encounters with the Solar System.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php |title=BOINC Projects List |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | The project distributes computationally intensive astronomical calculations to volunteers around the world using the BOINC infrastructure. Gaia@home focuses primarily on celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics, and the study of long-period comets and stellar encounters with the Solar System.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php |title=BOINC Projects List |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | ||
== History == | == History == | ||
| Line 55: | Line 66: | ||
== Scientific background == | == Scientific background == | ||
[[File:Gaia rotation.jpg|thumb|300x300px|The [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia]] spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency collects astrometric data used by Gaia@home researchers.]] | |||
The [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia]] mission is one of the most important astrometric missions ever conducted. Its measurements allow astronomers to determine precise positions, distances, and motions for stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia_overview |title=Gaia Overview |publisher=European Space Agency |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | The [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia]] mission is one of the most important astrometric missions ever conducted. Its measurements allow astronomers to determine precise positions, distances, and motions for stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia_overview |title=Gaia Overview |publisher=European Space Agency |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | ||
| Line 69: | Line 81: | ||
== Subprojects == | == Subprojects == | ||
[[File:Gaia2 1.png|thumb|The cloud of 13517 clones of the star Gliese 710 drawn according to the covariance matrix taken from the Gaia DR2 catalogue. This cloud is projected onto the maximum scatter plane X'Y', coordinates are expressed in parsecs. The red dot is the Sun position, the green dot is the star nominal position during an encounter and the orange cross is the centroid of the clone cloud. The blue dotted circle shows the approximate extend of the cometary Oort cloud. This star parameters are known with a good precision so the cloud of clones is rather compact..]] | |||
=== Long period comets === | === Long period comets === | ||
| Line 90: | Line 103: | ||
Orbital changes of C/2002 T7 projected on its original orbit plane that described by five snapshots in CODE catalogue. Red line depicts the past motion of this comet while the blue line depicts its future evolution. Five epochs (snapshots) when orbital elements are recorded are marked: 1 - osculating heliocentric orbit near the centre of the observational interval (typically near the perihelion); 2 - original barycentric orbit recorded in the past at 250 au from the Sun; 3 - future barycentric orbit recorded in the future at 250 au from the Sun; 4 - previous orbit, recorded at the previous perihelion; 5 - next orbit, in this case recorded at the escape border at 120 000 au from the Sun, but for many other comets recorded in the next perihelion. | Orbital changes of C/2002 T7 projected on its original orbit plane that described by five snapshots in CODE catalogue. Red line depicts the past motion of this comet while the blue line depicts its future evolution. Five epochs (snapshots) when orbital elements are recorded are marked: 1 - osculating heliocentric orbit near the centre of the observational interval (typically near the perihelion); 2 - original barycentric orbit recorded in the past at 250 au from the Sun; 3 - future barycentric orbit recorded in the future at 250 au from the Sun; 4 - previous orbit, recorded at the previous perihelion; 5 - next orbit, in this case recorded at the escape border at 120 000 au from the Sun, but for many other comets recorded in the next perihelion. | ||
=== Stellar close approaches === | === Stellar close approaches === | ||
| Line 116: | Line 127: | ||
The Gaia@home infrastructure has also been discussed within the BOINC community as a framework for additional astronomical and astrodynamics applications using Gaia datasets. The flexible BOINC architecture allows researchers to add new computational tasks as additional Gaia catalogues become available.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ |title=BOINC |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | The Gaia@home infrastructure has also been discussed within the BOINC community as a framework for additional astronomical and astrodynamics applications using Gaia datasets. The flexible BOINC architecture allows researchers to add new computational tasks as additional Gaia catalogues become available.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ |title=BOINC |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> | ||
[[File:Gaia2 2.png|thumb|The cloud of 11327 clones of the star ALS 9243 drawn according to the covariance matrix taken from the Gaia DR2 catalogue. This cloud is projected onto the maximum scatter plane X'Y', coordinates are expressed in parsecs. The red dot is the Sun position, the green dot is the star nominal position during an encounter and the orange cross is the centroid of the clone cloud. The blue dotted circle shows the approximate extend of the cometary Oort cloud. This star parameters have the poor accuracy but the star must be studied in detail since it might have a large mass, even grater than 10 solar masses. Gliese 710 will pass the Sun even closer.]] | |||
== Software and infrastructure == | == Software and infrastructure == | ||
Gaia@home uses the [[BOINC]] middleware system developed at the [[wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]]. BOINC enables volunteers to contribute unused CPU resources from personal computers to scientific research projects.<ref>{{cite journal | Gaia@home uses the [[Wikipedia:BOINC|BOINC]] middleware system developed at the [[wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]]. BOINC enables volunteers to contribute unused CPU resources from personal computers to scientific research projects.<ref>{{cite journal | ||
|last1=Anderson | |last1=Anderson | ||
|first1=David P. | |first1=David P. | ||
| Line 135: | Line 147: | ||
Volunteer participants attach the Gaia@home project to their BOINC clients and automatically download work units for processing. | Volunteer participants attach the Gaia@home project to their BOINC clients and automatically download work units for processing. | ||
== Scientific publications == | == Scientific publications == | ||
| Line 155: | Line 165: | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
* [[wikipedia:BOINC]] | * [[wikipedia:BOINC|BOINC]] | ||
* [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia spacecraft]] | * [[wikipedia:Gaia (spacecraft)|Gaia spacecraft]] | ||
* [[wikipedia:Oort cloud|Oort cloud]] | * [[wikipedia:Oort cloud|Oort cloud]] | ||
Latest revision as of 13:36, 29 May 2026
Gaia@home is a volunteer distributed computing project based on the BOINC middleware platform. The project was created by researchers from the Astronomical Observatory Institute at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland to support astronomical research using data from the Gaia space observatory mission operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).[1]
The project distributes computationally intensive astronomical calculations to volunteers around the world using the BOINC infrastructure. Gaia@home focuses primarily on celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics, and the study of long-period comets and stellar encounters with the Solar System.[2]
History
Gaia@home was launched as a scientific BOINC project to exploit the precise astrometric measurements produced by ESA's Gaia mission. The Gaia spacecraft was launched in 2013 and has produced highly accurate positional and velocity measurements for more than a billion stars in the Milky Way.[3]
The Gaia@home infrastructure allows researchers to run large ensembles of numerical integrations and Monte Carlo simulations that would otherwise require substantial dedicated supercomputing resources. Volunteer computers process orbital integrations, clone simulations, and stellar encounter calculations in parallel.
The project has periodically expanded its scientific applications as new Gaia data releases became available, including Gaia DR2 and Gaia DR3.[4]
Why Gaia@home?
The Gaia@home project is designed to give scientists another layer of computational freedom. The project allows calculations which demand a large amount of CPU time to be distributed across thousands of volunteer computers, reducing the computational workload for researchers and enabling large-scale processing operations.
Volunteer distributed computing is especially useful for orbital integrations involving large numbers of cloned trajectories and long timescales. These calculations often require repeated numerical integrations across millions of orbital configurations.
Goal
The goal of Gaia@home is to create a huge number of small jobs consisting of Gaia observational data and scientific code, then distribute these jobs to BOINC volunteers for processing and collection of results for further scientific analysis.
The project aims to:
- Study the dynamical evolution of long-period comets
- Investigate stellar close encounters with the Solar System
- Analyze perturbations caused by Galactic tides and passing stars
- Improve understanding of the Oort cloud and cometary origins
- Use Gaia astrometric data for precision celestial mechanics calculations
Scientific background
The Gaia mission is one of the most important astrometric missions ever conducted. Its measurements allow astronomers to determine precise positions, distances, and motions for stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy.[5]
The Gaia@home project uses these measurements to improve calculations involving stellar encounters and cometary orbits. Small changes in stellar positions and velocities can significantly affect long-term orbital predictions for objects in the outer Solar System.
The project's calculations frequently involve:
- Numerical N-body integrations
- Monte Carlo simulations
- Covariance matrix sampling
- Galactic gravitational potential models
- Stellar perturbation analysis
Subprojects
Long period comets
Calculating long-period comet orbits under simultaneous Galactic and stellar perturbations. The calculations involve solving an N-body problem with approximately 400 perturbing bodies.[6]
The subproject investigates the dynamical evolution of long-period comets originating from the Oort cloud. Researchers analyze how Galactic tides and close stellar passages perturb cometary orbits over millions of years.
more details: Królikowska, M and Dybczynski, P.A., 2020: The catalogue of cometary orbits and their dynamical evolution
Orbital changes of C/2002 T7 projected on its original orbit plane that described by five snapshots in CODE catalogue. Red line depicts the past motion of this comet while the blue line depicts its future evolution. Five epochs (snapshots) when orbital elements are recorded are marked: 1 - osculating heliocentric orbit near the centre of the observational interval (typically near the perihelion); 2 - original barycentric orbit recorded in the past at 250 au from the Sun; 3 - future barycentric orbit recorded in the future at 250 au from the Sun; 4 - previous orbit, recorded at the previous perihelion; 5 - next orbit, in this case recorded at the escape border at 120 000 au from the Sun, but for many other comets recorded in the next perihelion.
Stellar close approaches
The stellar close approaches subproject investigates the proximity parameters and influence of stars passing near the Solar System using Gaia DR2 and DR3 astrometric data.[7]
Using numerical integration within an axisymmetric Galactic model, researchers determine the parameters of close stellar encounters with the Solar System. The calculations estimate the most probable positions and velocities of stars during their minimum-distance approach to the Sun.
The project additionally generates thousands of orbital clones using covariance matrices to estimate uncertainties in stellar trajectories.
more details: Berski, F and Dybczynski, P.A., 2020: Close approach parameters recalculated based on the first Gaia data release
Future and experimental applications
The Gaia@home infrastructure has also been discussed within the BOINC community as a framework for additional astronomical and astrodynamics applications using Gaia datasets. The flexible BOINC architecture allows researchers to add new computational tasks as additional Gaia catalogues become available.[8]
Software and infrastructure
Gaia@home uses the BOINC middleware system developed at the University of California, Berkeley. BOINC enables volunteers to contribute unused CPU resources from personal computers to scientific research projects.[9]
The project supports multiple operating systems commonly supported by BOINC, including:
- Microsoft Windows
- Linux
- macOS
Volunteer participants attach the Gaia@home project to their BOINC clients and automatically download work units for processing.
Scientific publications
Research associated with Gaia@home and related calculations includes:
- Królikowska, M. & Dybczyński, P. A. (2020). The catalogue of cometary orbits and their dynamical evolution. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 640, A97.[10]
- Berski, F. & Dybczyński, P. A. (2016). Close approach parameters recalculated based on the first Gaia data release. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 595, L10.[11]
- Dybczyński, P. A. & Królikowska, M. Various studies involving long-period comet dynamics, Galactic perturbations, and stellar encounters.[12]
Project team / Sponsors
The project is operated by the Astronomical Observatory Institute, Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.[13]
The scientific leadership includes researchers specializing in celestial mechanics, cometary dynamics, and stellar perturbation studies.
See also
External links
References
- ↑ Gaia@home. Gaia@home. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ BOINC Projects List. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ Gaia Mission. European Space Agency. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ (2018}).Gaia Data Release 2: Summary of the contents and survey properties. Astronomy & Astrophysics. pp. A1. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201833051.
- ↑ Gaia Overview. European Space Agency. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ (2020}).The catalogue of cometary orbits and their dynamical evolution. Astronomy & Astrophysics. pp. A97. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038451.
- ↑ (2016}).Close approach parameters recalculated based on the first Gaia data release. Astronomy & Astrophysics. pp. L10. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201629835.
- ↑ BOINC. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ (2004}).BOINC: A System for Public-Resource Computing and Storage. 5th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Grid Computing. DOI: 10.1109/GRID.2004.14.
- ↑ (2020}).The catalogue of cometary orbits and their dynamical evolution. Astronomy & Astrophysics. pp. A97. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038451.
- ↑ (2016}).Close approach parameters recalculated based on the first Gaia data release. Astronomy & Astrophysics. pp. L10. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201629835.
- ↑ Publications using BOINC. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.
- ↑ Gaia@home. Gaia@home. Retrieved 2026-05-18}.