ABSTRACT AST-9413813 Levison, Hal The PIs will acquire 6 state-of-the-art workstations that will be linked together using a high-speed network to form a single, powerful, parallel-architecture computer, to be called "Solar System Orbit Numerical Integrating Cluster' or 'SSONIC'.SSONIC will be dedicated to solving some of the leading questions about the origin and evolution of the Earth and other bodies in the solar system. It has become increasingly apparent in the past 15 years that small bodies such as comets and steroids played, through accretionary processes, a fundamental role in the formation and evolution of the Earth and planets. After the planets formed, asteroidal and cometary impacts profoundly influenced the evolution of Earth's climate by i) providing volatiles and organic materials and ii) causing long-term climatic catastrophes. Understanding the dynamical evolution of these bodies is required in order to fully understand their effects on the Earth and other planets. Until very recently, direct numerical simulations of the dynamics of solar system objects over the timescales necessary to study the formation process and long-term evolution have been beyond normal computational reach. However, due to recent advancements in computer hardware and software, it is now possible to attack problems in solar system dynamics which were intractable only two or three years ago. The SSONIC computing system will allow the PIs make significant inroads in understanding the origin and evolution of bodies in the Solar System like the Earth and other planets. ***
