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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."

7 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Link, needs torrent. by paul248 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, I'm at 155/262MB currently. I'll create the torrent myself when it's done (~ 11 minutes)

  2. Yes, but... by 2.7182 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    is there really anyway to check the correctness of this?

    1. Re:Yes, but... by shaitand · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The actual correctness? no. and there probably never will be.

      I'm sure physics geeks will be heartily debating the THEORETICAL correctness any minute now. After all, what else would they be doing on a saturday night

  3. Neil deGrasse Tyson's explanation of falling in: by dlawson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's posted on Youtube here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNc-JLysk9Y&feature=related

    Watch 'til the end, the terminology is nothing short of cosmically hilarious.
    Dave Lawson, astrogeek.

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  4. Re:Neil deGrasse Tyson's explanation of falling in by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Here's another vid with trippy techno music and lots of event horizon distortion effects. Skip to the middle if you want to cut to the chase.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjsVvW-QlSI
         

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    Table-ized A.I.
  5. Re:One (missing) part that's apparently not simula by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well that would happen at the event horizon, which by definition is the "edge" of the black hole anyway.

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    It's official. Most of you are morons.
  6. Looks like Giedi Prime from Dune by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That black hole in the video looks almost exactly like Giedi Prime from Dune...

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