+ Home > News & Publications > Feature Stories > 2018 Archive
FEATURE STORIES
- 12.12.18 - Tracking Dynamo Waves Inside the Sun to Fathom the Solar Cycle
- Visualizations produced from NASA solar data open a window into the Sun’s interior, revealing dynamo wave patterns that help us understand the solar cycle better than ever before.
- 11.15.18 - Aircraft Noise Reduction Technologies Come in for a Landing
- Supported by high-fidelity, full-scale aircraft simulations run on the Pleiades supercomputer, NASA flight tests recently demonstrated new ways to reduce airframe noise without impacting aerodynamic performance.
- 11.13.18 - NASA Missions to Benefit from New Cloud Computing Services
- NASA-funded scientific and engineering projects will get a boost from a new cloud computing service that expands the agency’s range of high-performance computing service offerings. Through a secure, managed cloud environment approach, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility and the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) will provide supported access to resources at commercial cloud providers.
- 11.06.18 - NCCS GIS Capabilities Support NASA Disaster Mapping and Citizen Science
- The NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Spatial Analytics Platform and related Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities are supporting NASA disaster mapping and a new landslide citizen science activity.
- 10.30.18 - Weather Forecasts Support Rocket Launches Testing Parachutes for Mars Missions
- Instrumental to planning all three test flights were Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) weather forecasts run at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 10.29.18 - July 2018 Mid-Atlantic Atmospheric River and Extreme Precipitation Event Captured by MERRA-2
- The Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), which runs at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), clearly captured this event in which an entire months’ worth of precipitation fell in a matter of days.
- 10.21.18 – Supercomputing the Secrets of Giant Stars
- In this video, supercomputing power and algorithms help astrophysicists untangle giant stars’ brightness, temperature, and chemical variations. Researchers used NASA's Pleiades supercomputer to perform some of their simulations.
- 10.10.18 - Pulsar in a Box’ Reveals Surprising Picture of a Neutron Star’s Surroundings
- A simulation run on NASA's Discover and Pleiades supercomputers yields a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars called pulsars.
- 10.02.18 - NCCS Case Study: Achieving Expansive Biomass Estimates with Cloud Bursting
- A partnership between science, NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) high-performance computing, and private industry enabled complex computational processing of satellite images across Africa.
- 09.15.18 - The Complex Evolution of Florence’s Winds
- The GEOS weather model running at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) captured the storm’s wind field between September 1 and September 14, 2018.
- 09.12.18 - The Closest Exoplanet to Earth Could Be 'Highly Habitable'
- Running a NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) computer model at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), researchers have found that Proxima Centauri b can sustain enormous areas of liquid water on its surface, potentially raising its prospects for harboring living organisms.
- 09.04.18 – NASA Leverages HPC for Asteroid Defense
- NASA has been actively working to understand and mitigate the risks posed by asteroids for a decade. Much of this work currently takes place in California as part of the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project (ATAP) at NASA Ames, using the Pleiades supercomputer.
- 08.31.18 - NASA Model Forecasts Mid-Atlantic Local Area Flooding, July 21-25, 2018
- In accord with other 5- to 10-day forecasts, NASA’s GEOS Forward Processing (FP) system indicated a mid-level height anomaly pattern analogous with those of prior notable long-duration and major Middle Atlantic rainfall events. GEOS FP runs four times per day at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 08.28.18 - NCCS-Hosted Simulations Show Health Benefits from Accelerating Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reductions
- Using NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) resources, Duke University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies researchers examined the human health benefits of increasing 21st century carbon dioxide reductions by 180 gigatons of carbon.
- 08.27.18 - How Scientists Predicted Corona’s Appearance During Aug. 21, 2017, Total Solar Eclipse
- Predictive Science researchers used data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory to develop a corona model that they ran on supercomputers including the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility.
- 08.22.18 - Why Do Galaxies Start Out as Cosmic Pickles?
- A geometric mystery from deep space is sharpening the computer models used to understand the complex history of the universe and to peer into its far future. Modeling efforts including the Bolshoi-Planck simulation of large-scale structure run on Pleiades, NASA’s most powerful supercomputer.
- 08.16.18 – 240 Cubic Miles Of Magma Was Just Discovered Beneath California's Supervolcano
- Geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey’s California Volcano Observatory used seismic tomography to measure the Long Valley Caldera, one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world. Running the data through NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer, the researchers were able to map the reservoir of magma beneath the caldera and estimate the likelihood of a supereruption.
- 08.14.18 – NCCS Case Study: NASA Global Weather Forecasting Jumps Forward
- Flexible access to NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) supercomputing resources on Discover enabled doubling the forecast model’s spatial resolution and other advances to yield more accurate forecasts.
- 08.02.18 - Kiosk and Hyperwall Debut at 2018 Science Jamboree
- Among the exhibits filling the atrium at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center event was the new, permanent installation of an interactive kiosk and hyperwall displaying scientific visualizations and other content. The exhibit is a collaboration between the NASA Center Climate for Simulation (NCCS) and the Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS).
- 07.13.18 - Joint Assimilation of SMOS Brightness Temperature and GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Observations
- Using the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), Global Modeling and Assimilation Office researchers assimilated multi-resolution, multi-sensor satellite observations with the aim of improving model estimates of the vertical soil moisture profile.
- 07.10.18 - GMAO and NCCS Support Winter–Spring 2018 Field Campaigns
- From studying Earth to contributing to a future Mars mission, Winter–Spring 2018 field campaigns benefitted from forecast support by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) and the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 06.29.18 - Scientists Use Supercomputers to Predict Asteroid Damage on Earth
- Simulations of hypothetical impact scenarios run on the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility's Pleiades supercomputer help calculate risks and assess possible damage that might occur when asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere.
- 06.28.18 – No Planets Needed: NCCS-Hosted Simulations Show Disk Patterns Can Self-Generate
- Astrophysicists used the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Discover supercomputer to simulate gas-dust interactions in disks (debris and transitional) around young stars.
- 06.11.18 - NCCS Case Study: Accelerated Data Processing Saves Time, Allows for More Thorough Research
- How co-located data projected onto multiple Virtual Machines on ADAPT radically saved time, effort, and resources for ABoVE's study on the impact of climate change on our continent's water supply.
- 06.11.18 - NCCS Case Study: Customizable Virtual Operating Environments Enable CALET Science Advances
- How the speed of data processing and freedom for environment customization on ADAPT’s virtual machines allowed for more precise measurement of cosmic-ray fluxes with the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) onboard the International Space Station.
- 05.29.18 – Recent Decline in Lower Stratospheric Ozone Attributed to Circulation Changes
- Studies with the MERRA-2 reanalysis show that transport changes between 1998 and 2016 most likely caused ozone in the extratropical lower stratosphere to decline. MERRA-2 runs at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 05.02.18 - Creating a Computing Center That Can Solve Science’s Most Complex Problems
- Fueled by over 2 megawatts of power and cutting-edge equipment from the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS), the Virginia Tech Biocomplexity Institute's new data center is ready to help collaborators address issues ranging from disasters to disease outbreaks.
- 04.26.18 – Lunar Swirl Features Reproduced by Modeling Solar Wind Standoff
- Researchers at the Institute for Modeling Plasma, Atmospheres and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT) at the University of Colorado Boulder, used NASA's Pleiades supercomputer to develop the first 3D simulations to disentangle the movement of ions and electrons as the solar wind interacts with lunar magnetic anomalies.
- 04.26.18 - Stratospheric Intrusion-Influenced Ozone Air Quality Exceedances Investigated in the NASA MERRA-2 Reanalysis
- NASA's MERRA-2 Reanalysis is an ideal candidate for the scientific studies of stratospheric intrusions since it is such a high-resolution global dataset and also assimilates both ozone and meteorological observations. MERRA-2 runs at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 04.16.18 – Tracking El Niño
- NASA Goddard's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) combined satellite observations with model data to recreate the 2015-2016 El Niño in 3D. The GMAO computed the synthesis at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 03.14.18 – How Much Snow Accumulates in North America Each Year? More Than Scientists Thought
- Scientists at The Ohio State University have revised an estimate of snow volume for the entire continent, and discovered that snow accumulation in a typical year is 50% higher than previously thought. So far, they have used 1.8 million core-hours on NASA's Pleiades supercomputer and produced about 16 terabytes of data to run their regional climate computer models.
- 03.05.18 – Helping Keep Astronauts Safe with Advanced Simulations, Visualizations
- Cutting-edge simulations run on NASA's Pleiades supercomputer help engineers shape the final configuration of the Orion launch abort vehicle, designed to keep astronauts safe during launch.
- 02.22.18 - Active Winter Weather Forecasted Over North America Following a Major Stratospheric Sudden Warming Event
- In its routine 10-day forecasts, the global Goddard Earth Observing System forward processing (GEOS-FP) system successfully tracked the development of the first major mid-winter stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) event in 5 years. GEOS-FP runs 4 times per day at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 02.15.18 –‘Handyman Of Proteins’ Got Life Started
- Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center are running supercomputer simulations of hypothetical ancient proteins to better understand the origin and evolution of life in the Universe.
- 01.24.18 – Design Software Transforms How Commercial Jetliners Are Built
- The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division's award-winning Pegasus 5 modeling and simulation software is used by industry for the design and development of commercial aircraft and spacecraft. The story of Pegasus 5 is featured in the 2018 NASA Spinoff publication.
- 01.11.18 – No Planets Needed: NASA Study Shows Disk Patterns Can Self-Generate
- A new NASA study shows rings, arcs and spirals in disks around stars may not be caused by planets. They may self-generate, per simulations run on the Discover supercomputing cluster at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
- 01.11.18 – Galactic Center: Scientists Take Viewers to the Center of the Milky Way
- Astrophysicists have created an immersive 360-degree visualization of the center of the Milky Way galaxy using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Hydrodynamic simulations and visualization computations were run on the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility's Pleiades supercomputer.
+ Home
