SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Helping the
world harness the power of data, HGST (@HGSTstorage), a Western
Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), today announced that the Event
Horizon Telescope (EHT) project is using HGST Ultrastar® HelioSeal™
hard disk drives (HDDs) to store imaging data from the supermassive
black hole, Sagittarius A*. HGST's HDDs are the first and only
helium-filled HDDs in the world. The hermetically sealed Ultrastar
HDDs being used by the EHT represent a breakthrough in storage
technology, which results in higher capacity and lower power
consumption when compared to air-filled HDDs. In addition, HGST's
proprietary HelioSeal technology enables the storage arrays created
by EHT to capture information at high altitudes where traditional
air-filled HDDs would fail.
Thirty-four observatories and universities around the world are
collaborating to form the Event Horizon Telescope project. The goal
of the EHT is to create the first image of a black hole boundary,
known as the event horizon: the point at which the force of
gravity is so great, even light cannot escape. By bringing black
holes into focus, the EHT will enable astronomers to study
space-time in the most extreme environment in the universe.
However, black holes are so distant that they span a very small
area of the sky, so the EHT group is assembling a telescope that
has the highest magnifying power possible from the surface of the
earth. To do this, the EHT uses a global array of telescopes in 10
geographic locations around the world, recording data at a rate of
64 gigabits/second. When the resulting petabytes of data are
processed at a central location, the EHT becomes a virtual radio
dish as large as the earth that can resolve objects 2,000 times
finer than the Hubble Space Telescope.
"HGST's contribution to the Event Horizon Telescope project has
helped EHT accurately capture and store the massive amounts of data
coming in from all the telescopes located around the globe," said
Shep Doeleman, professor at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who directs
the Event Horizon Telescope project. "Using sealed helium drives
was the only way to ensure that data could be captured in remote
locations, such as our high-altitude observatory in Mexico, where all other storage devices
physically failed. Additionally, the high capacity of each drive
ensured that we were able to build denser and fewer enclosures
overall."
Weighing in at four million times the mass of the sun, the
Sagittarius A* black hole lies at the center of the Milky Way
galaxy, where gas and dust obscure the view in optical light.
Radio waves, however, can freely stream from deep within the
gravity well of Sagittarius A* and travel 25,000 light years to
earth. There, the largest and most sensitive radio dishes on
the planet capture signals from the event horizon of Sagittarius A*
using custom built high-speed data recorders. This technique, known
as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), cross-references
recordings made across the Americas, Antarctica, Hawaii and Europe, and will soon be capable of rendering
a visual representation of a black hole. By resolving the
shadow cast by the black hole against the hot gas falling inwards,
the EHT will be able to test theories set forth by Albert Einstein, and for the first time visually
capture the first image of a black hole.
"HGST's hermetically sealed helium drives are uniquely suited
for the harsh ambient environments being experienced by the Event
Horizon Telescope group. Couple that with the raw storage capacity
of HGST's HelioSeal drives, and Dr. Doeleman's team of
astronomers have the only reliable storage platform capable of
capturing an image that will go down in history," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product
marketing, HGST. "The Event Horizon Telescope project is set to
capture the first ever visual image of a black hole, and HGST is
thrilled that our helium HDDs are the only enabling storage
technology that can help push those boundaries of science and
research."
Additionally, Shep Doeleman,
Dimitrios Psaltis and Avery Broderick will be discussing the EHT
project via a Reddit AMA on Wednesday,
August 26 at 2:00pm EDT. For
more information, please visit the Reddit promotional post.
For more information on HelioSeal technology, Ultrastar He6 HDDs
and HGST's broad portfolio of solutions, please visit www.hgst.com.
For more information on the Event Horizon Telescope project,
visit: http://eventhorizontelescope.org/.
Follow HGST
on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+,
and #HGSTStorage.
TWEET THIS: Creating the
world's first #BlackHole boundary image using data
captured on @HGSTstorage
#HeliumHDD: http://bit.ly/1MsO4kp.
About HGST
HGST, a Western Digital company (NASDAQ:
WDC), develops innovative, advanced hard disk drives,
enterprise-class solid state drives, external storage solutions and
services used to store, preserve and manage the world's most valued
data. HGST addresses customers' rapidly changing storage needs by
delivering intelligent storage devices that tightly integrate
hardware and software to maximize solution performance. Founded by
the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high-value storage for a
broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Cloud, Data
Center, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal
Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S.
headquarters in San Jose,
California. To find out more about HGST enterprise-class
HDD, SSD and SW solutions, please visit www.hgst.com.
One GB is equal to one billion bytes, and one TB equals 1,000 GB
(one trillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on
operating environment and formatting.
HelioSeal and Ultrastar are registered trademarks, and Long Live
Data is a trademark of HGST, Inc. and its affiliates in
the United States and/or other
countries. All other trademarks are properties of their respective
owners.
Erin
Hartin
HGST
Office:
303-284-7790
Erin.Hartin@HGST.com
|
Katie
Watson
Porter
Novelli
Cell:
408-439-2002
HGST_Team@porternovelli.com
|
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SOURCE HGST, A Western Digital Company