Storms caused by fluctuations in the Sun’s activity pose a threat to satellites and could be fatal to astronauts and space tourists. An international effort led by Professor Minna Palmroth, Computational Space Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland, is set to simulate a particular form of storms in space known as sub-storms. The knowledge to be obtained will assist in safeguarding future space missions.
The project involves extensive computing at one of Europe’s fastest supercomputers, Hawk, hosted at the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart, Germany. A grant from PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) allows for no less than 60 million computing hours at Hawk.
Test simulations have been performed at computers operated by the Finnish NREN, CSC.
Submitted by Morten Anderson
