I’m running a Linux distro on a tower computer I had kicking around at home. Running Mint 22 these days, just for kicks. And to do some citizen-science. I’ve got the BOINC software running, and hooked up to a few projects out there, including the Einstein@Home search for gravitational waves.
Here is a snippet from the site about neutron stars, the deep-space source for gravitational waves;
Neutron stars are compact and exotic objects. They have a diameter of between 20 and 30 kilometers – about the size of a small city. At the same time, their mass is on average that of half a million Earths, or 1.4 times that of our Sun. These objects are composed of matter that is much denser than ordinary matter anywhere in the Universe. The density of a neutron star is comparable to that of an atomic nucleus (and possibly even higher inside). Neutron stars have strong magnetic fields, up to a trillion times stronger than a refrigerator magnet. Some also spin around their axis up to hundreds of times per second.
