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While you're away at work all day, your home computer could be put to work. theSkyNet is a new project, run by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), which aims to use the spare computing power of personal desktop computers.

By creating a network of thousands of home computers, it is possible to simulate a single very powerful machine capable of doing real scientific research.

And thousands of ordinary people all around the world have already signed up, at www.theSkyNet.org to take part.

theSkyNet was launched at Curtin University, UWA 's partner in ICRAR, with the support of the City of Perth and the State Government.

ICRAR's Outreach manager Pete Wheeler explained that radio astronomy was a data-intensive activity. "As we develop and switch on the next generation of radio telescopes, the supercomputing resources that allow science to come from this deluge of data will be in increasingly high demand," he said.

"As such, theSkyNet aims to compliment the work already being done by creating a community computing resource that radio astronomers will use to process data in ways and for purposes that otherwise might not have been possible.

"theSkyNet will take large radio astronomy data images, or ‘cubes', and break them down into smaller chunks before sending them out separately as data packets."

Rhys Newman, from eMedia Track, and one of the developers of the project, said: "When one of these data packets arrives at a user's computer it remains in the Java Sandbox, meaning it is not stored on the computer but held temporarily for processing. Once processing is complete it returns to theSkyNet servers to rejoin all of the other returning data packets."

Nearly 3,000 people signed up for the project within 24 hours of it being launched and more are still coming in.

Mr Wheeler explained that once you sign up and log in to the website (www.theskynet.org) your dashboard displays a button showing that you are contributing, as well as some statistics about your computer power, the amount of data that's been uploaded and downloaded and the credits you're amassing.

ICRAR Director UWA Professor Peter Quinn said growing and maintaining Astronomy research from the comfort of home theSkyNet user base was of vital importance to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Its thousands of dish antennae will create the most sensitive sky-watching instrument ever made, and some of its data might well be processed by theSkyNet.

The decision about where to build the SKA, in WA or in South Africa, is just four months away.

Professor Quinn said the community based cloud computing resource would raise awareness of the SKA project as well as complementing the primary data processing work of supercomputing facilities.

The first job for the computing community will be to process a set of data observed by the famous Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales.

Students from Ardross primary school took part in theSkyNet launch as Phase II of the project will introduce programming challenges for high school students to develop skills and solutions for real data processing problems as well as to build in the opportunity for citizen scientists to identify and classify objects.

Visit www.theSkyNet.org to find out more and join in.

Published in UWA News , 3 October 2011