Hubble Finds Relic of a Shredded Galaxy
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young blue stars surrounding a mid-sized black hole called HLX-1. The discovery suggests that the black hole formed in the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy.
Black holes can be spotted using X-rays because of radiation coming from matter heating up as it swirls around and falls into the black hole. This phenomenon is known to astronomers as an accretion disc. Known as HLX-1 (Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1), this black hole weighs in around
20 000 times the mass of the Sun and lies towards the edge of galaxy ESO 243-49, which is 290 million light-years from Earth.
Renewable energy in India
In 2011 India invested $10.3 billion in renewable energy, creating 52% growth in the sector. Solar power growth was particularly impressive, with investment increasing 700% over 2010 levels last year. Even then, the $4.2 billion invested in solar power in 2011 slightly trailed
investment in wind power, which reached $4.6 billion.
India’s investment in renewable energy last year amounted to 4% of all investment in clean energy made worldwide.
In terms of added renewable energy capacity: India added a national record 2.827 GW of wind power, bringing India into third place for new installations globally in 2011. Grid-connected solar power climbed from just 18 MW in 2010 to 2.777 GW in 2011. Nearly a further gigawatt of solar power is expected to come online in 2012.
Combining GPU and CPU on a single chip will boost processor performance by 20 percent
GPUs were initially designed to execute graphics programs, and they are capable of executing many individual functions very quickly. CPUs, or the “brains” of a computer, have less computational power – but are better able to perform more complex tasks. New approach is to allow the GPU cores to execute computational functions, and have CPU cores pre-fetch the data the GPUs will need from off-chip main memory. This is more efficient because it allows CPUs and GPUs to do what they are good at. GPUs are good at performing computations. CPUs are good at making decisions and flexible data retrieval.