200,000 computers detected 24 hidden crystals

Scientists used a computer cloud, with the combined power of 200,000 personal computers, and found the new Milky Way's 24 metaphors.

Lead researcher Benjamin Knispel, Germany's Max Planck Institute, said the study could only be done thanks to the enormous computer power provided by the Einstein @ Home volunteers.

Picture 1 of 200,000 computers detected 24 hidden crystals
Finding 24 metaphors in the Milky Way - (Photo: NASA)

The Einstein @ Home project connects home computers and volunteers' offices around the world with a supercomputer, allowing German scientists to analyze archival data of glass telescopes in Australia.

According to ECNMag.com, the new study helped to detect 24 more hidden crystals, the ruins of dead stars that carry the appropriate physical properties for studying Albert Enstein's general theory of relativity.

Metaphysics are the remnants of giant-sized stellar explosions, leaving only neutron stars with strong magnetism and extremely compressed structures.

They rotate very fast and radiate radio waves along the magnetic axis, similar to lighthouses, allowing experts to observe them when radio waves point to Earth.

Specialist Knispel and colleagues analyzed the survey carried out from 1997 to 2001, collected by the Parkes radio telescope in southeastern Australia, according to a report on The Astrophysical Journal.