Modeling Supernovae With a Supercomputer

A team of scientists at the University of Chicago will be using 22 million processor-hours to simulate the physics of exploding stars. The team will make use of the Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory to analyze four different scenarios for type Ia supernovae. Included in the link is a video simulation of a thermonuclear flame busting its way out of a white dwarf. The processing time was made possible by the Department of Energy's INCITE program. "Burning in a white dwarf can occur as a deflagration or as a detonation. 'Imagine a pool of gasoline and throw a match on it. That kind of burning across the pool of gasoline is a deflagration,' Jordan said. 'A detonation is simply if you were to light a stick of dynamite and allow it to explode.' In the Flash Center scenario, deflagration starts off-center of the star's core. The burning creates a hot bubble of less dense ash that pops out the side due to buoyancy, like a piece of Styrofoam submerged in water."

with a computer?

[nih]

blimey, i was expecting them to use prayer, because that has been proven to work unlike these so called 'computers', which according to Ben Stein the nazi's used

They need to get Michael Bay involved..

[DanWS6]

I bet he could make a neater looking explosion without the use of a super computer. It'd even have audio!

Re:flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm a pyromaniac and I consider this stimulation.

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

modeling with supercomputers should be called "supermodeling" from now on