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New Telescope to Create 150 Petabyte Database of the Universe
Posted by Adam Frucci at 6:50 AM on October 4, 2008
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is "a proposed ground-based 6.7 meter effective diameter (8.4 meter primary mirror), 10 square-degree-field telescope that will provide digital imaging of faint astronomical objects across the entire sky, night after night." What's that mean? Well, it means, if it's built, we'll have a telescope attempting to catalog the entire night sky into an absolutely massive 150 petabyte database. Awesome!
The LSST isn't slated to open up shop until 2016, but when it does, it'll record a whopping 30TB of data a night by aiming itself into the sky and recording what it sees. It'll be used to "trace billions of remote galaxies and measure the distortions in their shapes produced by lumps of Dark Matter, providing multiple tests of the mysterious Dark Energy."
What's more impressive is the setup they'll need to get all that data recorded. Check it:
* the Mountain/Base facility, which does initial data reduction and alert generation on a 25 TFLOPS Linux cluster with 60PB of storage (in year 10 of the survey)
* a 2.5 Gbps network that transfers the data from Chile (where the telescope itself will be based) to the U.S. and within the US
* the Archive Centre, which re-reduces the data and produces annual data releases on a 250 TFLOPS Linux cluster and 60PB of storage (in year 10 of the survey)
* the Data Access Centres which provide access to all of the data products as well as 45 TFLOPS and 12 Petabytes of end user available computing and storage.
Pretty amazing stuff. [The Register]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Steve CTO
Posted November 1, 2008 9:09 AM
There are many more terrestrial petabyte-scale databases coming right up, created by upstarts like Greenplum, http://Greenplum.com
illegalprelude
Posted 7:29 AM 4/10/08
@dwight-schrute:
hahaha when you go up and down real quick, you can see the Enterprise
illegalprelude
DaneB
Posted 7:21 AM 4/10/08
@dwight-schrute:
I was just going to mention that. I'm no trekkie, but that HDD definitely looks like the USS Enterprise.
DaneB
fastm3driver
Posted 7:11 AM 4/10/08
@OMG! Ponies!: Yea but if you forget your towel your going to have a bad day.
fastm3driver
hammertime1994
Posted 7:09 AM 4/10/08
@ripfire: lol...
hammertime1994
fastm3driver
Posted 7:08 AM 4/10/08
I would be more interested in applying the data to a holodeck type program. I would bet we could learn more moving through the universe in a 3D space and noting the changes and relationships between the body's.
The data is nice but the plan on how to use it is just as important.
fastm3driver
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 7:07 AM 4/10/08
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- Douglas Noel Adams
OMG! Ponies!
dwight-schrute
Posted 7:06 AM 4/10/08
Is it me or does the hard drive look a lot like the Enterprise when it's in space?
dwight-schrute
fastm3driver
Posted 7:05 AM 4/10/08
@The Terminator: That FTL drive might not be that great if you don't understand where the planets will be.
Also, them buying more storage will allow the disc makers to invest in bigger drives.
fastm3driver
ripfire
Posted 7:05 AM 4/10/08
Hmmm. A database full of petafiles.
ripfire
The Terminator
Posted 7:01 AM 4/10/08
You know, I have to say that while this is all great and wonderful, Why can't we be working on something important... like FTL drives. Petabytes?... Meh.
The Terminator
phoenix27
Posted 7:00 AM 4/10/08
opening picture is full of win lol
phoenix27
The Terminator
Posted 6:58 AM 4/10/08
"My God, it's full of stars."
The Terminator
Phenostar
Posted 6:56 AM 4/10/08
Did these guys factor in Moore's law when conceptualizing this? I mean by 2016, the latest iPod shuffle will probably hold over 150PB of music.
Phenostar
jkr's bold comment
Posted 7:40 AM 4/10/08
photoshop pic of the day. I bow down to you sir
jkr's bold comment
krystar
Posted 7:35 AM 4/10/08
sweet. so it's doing a nightly image and then we'll be able to make incremental diff backups. how long until we can restore backup images?
krystar
Jitty
Posted 8:21 AM 4/10/08
@Phenostar:
Moore's law isn't guaranteed to work for all of time. It might eventually slow down. Especially when we're just beginning to focus on flash memory instead of HDD's. Plus I think your math is wrong, Moore's law states a double every 2 years. So in 8 years would mean an a 2.56TB of memory on the ipod.
Jitty
Gary_7vn
Posted 8:08 AM 4/10/08
@fastm3driver: The data will no doubt be used to create some kind of weapon.
Gary_7vn
Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude
Posted 8:07 AM 4/10/08
And two days after it goes up plan on it going down. This will coincide with the planned shutdown for 6 months of pre-scheduled maintenance...
Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude
Glaiel-Gamer
Posted 8:36 AM 4/10/08
@Phenostar:
The Universe, on your phone.
Glaiel-Gamer
Uncle Remus
Posted 9:12 AM 4/10/08
6.7m is pitifully small. I could build that in my back yard. I believe I'll get started on it tomorrow. Let's see I'll need some 2x4s, some bailing wire, a stick of gum, of course a few rolls of duct tape... and about a half dozen blonde babes.
Uncle Remus
lionelbob
Posted 11:43 AM 4/10/08
By the time the database is finished, it will be wrong, even if only one star burns out. Maybe it will keep somebody employed though, constantly rerunning the same thing.
lionelbob
meropealcyone
Posted 1:28 PM 4/10/08
@lionelbob:
That's kinda the point: to identify objects that are changing and guide the big (but very small field of view) scopes to them. There are lots of transient events that are being missed because we don't have this sort of coverage.
meropealcyone
Soyerzz
Posted 8:09 PM 4/10/08
Awesome, But by 2016 wont be have like 500Tb Hdd?
Soyerzz
SomeoneUKno
Posted 1:52 AM 5/10/08
@Jitty: I think he was just joking around...
SomeoneUKno
pevans34
Posted 3:09 AM 5/10/08
Well be glad we have these things when we spot that asteroid coming at us.
pevans34
MelanieWellwood
Posted 9:11 AM 4/10/08
The current estimate of all stars in the universe sits somewhere around 70 sextillion, (7 followed by 22 zeroes). And assuming 1 megabyte is allocated for each star, 150 petabytes of storage is asmore about 400 billion times less than the amount of space that will actually be needed to hold 1mb of information per star.
MelanieWellwood
Zad_the_Impaler
Posted 1:50 PM 6/10/08
By 2016 it will have become self aware.
Zad_the_Impaler
EricAlder
Posted 1:16 AM 7/10/08
I hope they let us know when they're taking the picture - I'd hate fo everybody to have their eyes closed. (Who's got a comb?)
EricAlder
GTgeek
Posted 5:20 AM 7/10/08
I wonder how much time will get added on to this study because of nights ruined by overcast skys and rain. I suppose they have something written in the contract about that.
GTgeek