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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. Not new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Alain Riazuelo at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics similar stuff years ago and even published a special DVD in a French magazine. It is sad they do not credit him at all, not very ethical.

    http://www2.iap.fr/users/riazuelo/bh/index.html

    1. Re:Not new by Radtoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not ethical? Why should this person be credited?
      Is the program code taken from Alain Riazuelo, or did he perhaps invent the theory behind Black Holes that made it possible to write the program from the article?

      Because what is asked in research is only that the persons whose work the current publication is based on are credited, both for the sake of their achievement and to enable verification of theories that isn't only superficial (current publication).

  2. Re:Link, needs torrent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    why.. your link was a 1.2 minute download

  3. Re:Link, needs torrent. by paul248 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Got it. Here's a torrent:
    http://www.legittorrents.info/index.php?page=torrent-details&id=26f463c791852abe4790e4b6b2dbe3fdab7b2413

  4. TORRENT by shaitand · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.rentalgeek.com/downloads/ibhs.torrent

    This has full data file, linux binary, and windows binary.

    Also, this has been uploaded to Elbitz if you prefer private tracker.

  5. Re:Yes, but... by iluvcapra · · Score: 2, Informative

    IANAP, but I seem to recall that images that depict gravitational lenses tend to show stars near the lens deforming into arcs; in this movie stars in the background remain points, even though at least some of them would deform into arcs as they passed behind the object.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  6. Re:Why was this done? by Legion303 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I imagine you would first have to move to Germany, then get a job at the University of Stuttgart. Then ask the German government for funding before someone reminds you that universities provide their own funding and usually don't require much justification for the research they choose to produce.

  7. Re:Yes, but... by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    How about playing Star Trek Online on one monitor while watching Farscape (via Netflix) on the other monitor?

  8. Re:Acceleration disk missing by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nit-pick - the thing you're thinking of is called an accretion disk, not an acceleration disk.

    --
    It's official. Most of you are morons.