What is ATERUI II?

ATERUI II is a supercomputer specialized for astronomy which started full-scale operation in June 2018. ATERUI II has six times better computing performance than the previous supercomputer ATERUI had when it was first installed, and three times better computing performance than ATERUI had after its October 2014 upgrade. This increased power enables larger-scale simulations. With ATERUI, we could only simulate a fraction of the actual number of stars in a galaxy. In contrast, ATERUI II can calculate the motion for all of the hundreds of billions of stars.

Astronomy had historically developed with the two pillars of “observation astronomy,” which observes and describes the actual Universe, and “theoretical astronomy,” which describes the Universe’s appearance based on physics and mathematics. Recently, a new type of astronomy called “simulation astronomy” which uses computers has emerged. Using the computing power of supercomputers, we are now able to numerically solve equations that cannot be solved analytically. ATERUI II aims to depict a more realistic Universe through simulations utilizing its great calculation speed.