Ordinary computers like those used to send e-mail or surf the Internet are being credited with finding a previously unknown neutron star. Home office computers in Ames, Iowa, and Mainz, Germany, were cited Thursday in the discovery of fast-rotating pulsar called PSR J2007+2722. It was the first scientific discovery for the project, known as Einstein(at)Home, that uses spare computer power donated by 250,000 volunteers in 192 countries. Data collected by the giant radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico are divided among the home computers for analysis and the results are fed back researchers based at the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing, the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The research programs run in the background, using spare computing power that otherwise would go unused.
