October 2012

The Wolf-Rayet star EZ Canis Majoris at the center of a gas bubble (Image ESA, J. Toala & M. Guerrero (IAA-CSIC), Y.-H. Chu & R. Gruendl (UIUC), S. Arthur (CRyA–UNAM), R. Smith (NOAO/CTIO), S. Snowden (NASA/GSFC) and G. Ramos-Larios (IAM))

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ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope observed the star EZ Canis Majoris (EZ CMa), also known by the HD 50896 classification, which is about 5,000 light years from Earth. Represented with the pink color at the center of the image, it’s a really special star, because around it a gas bubble has formed which extends for about 60 light years.

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The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory has launched the new supercomputer Titan, a system that adopts the new Cray architecture that claims to have a peak power of twenty Petaflops. With such performances, Titan could become the most powerful supercomputers in the world surpassing Sequoia.