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New Interactive Black Hole Simulation Published

Posted by timothy on from the watch-for-these-danger-signs dept.

quaith writes "The New Scientist reports on a simulation just published in the American Journal of Physics that shows how the sky would appear in the vicinity of a black hole — if an observer could actually get near one. Using real positions of around 118,000 stars, the simulation shows how the bending of light, the frequency shift, and the magnification caused by gravitational lensing and aberration in the vicinity of the black hole affect the sky's appearance. The simulation is interactive and allows the user to explore the stellar sky around the black hole. The simulation offers a couple of modes: 'quasi static' or 'freely falling' and the sample videos are quite spectacular. The New Scientist has a writeup, with an embedded video . The original article citation is here (abstract only). The simulation, which runs on Linux or Windows, as well as sample videos, can be downloaded from the University of Stuttgart website."

9 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. yes, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    does it...

    which runs on Linux

    Oh. sorry.

    1. Re:yes, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I was so afraid to click, worried whether it was Goatse. But my fears were naught. However, what is Rick Astley doing orbiting around a black hole?

  2. why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why are they releasing that code? People are just going to try to find something wrong with it!

  3. Warning! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Whatever you do, for the love of all things good, Do Not invoke the simulation program with the -goatse switch....

  4. Sloppy programming by AnotherAnonymousUser · · Score: 2, Funny

    What, they can't directly apply the compression methods they're simulating and create a 1byte file from the entire zip?

    1. Re:Sloppy programming by Megane · · Score: 2, Funny

      Here it is in hexadecimal: 2A

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  5. Re:Yes, but... by blindseer · · Score: 5, Funny

    After all, what else would they be doing on a saturday night

    Posting on Slashdot?

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  6. Re:That sucked by stokessd · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is how you do it:

    I just downloaded the simulation and the first thing it printed was:
    "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a black hole"

  7. Re:TORRENT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Excellent!
    Thanks to these naive coders, I am now one step closer to my black hole machine!
    Igor! Bring me my laughing flashlight! Muahaha!