Seven Wonders of the IT World
The fastest supercomputer. The most intriguing data center. The constantly changing core at the heart of Linux. Take a tour of the most impressive and most unusual marvels of the IT world.
Computer farthest from Earth:
NASA's Voyager 1 satellite
Distance from Earth: Voyager is three times farther away than Pluto. That's to say at least 4 billion kilometers, times three.
Distance from the sun: 15.44 terameters.
Distance logged per day: 1 million miles.
Years old: Almost 30, having launched on Sept. 5, 1977.
Places it's dropped by: Jupiter and Saturn, on the way to the edge of space as we know it.
How it communicates with Earth: Uses NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the Earth. There's no IM out here: Signals traveling at light speed take 14 hours one-way to reach Voyager.
Daily to-do list: Collects data on solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields and radio waves.
Powered by: Radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
Power needed: About 300 watts, the amount of power needed for a bright lightbulb.
Next: Google's Ultra-mysterious Data Center


