Interstellar rendering and gravitational lensing

Specifically for the Interstellar film, the British animation company Double Negative created a black hole rendering model based on the mathematical calculations of astrophysicist Kip Thorne, a scientific consultant on the motion picture.

In the process of rendering, an interesting effect of gravitational lensing was discovered. Kip Thorne himself explains this phenomenon in a scientific article published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity .

The rendering showed that a person or a robot traveling to the event horizon of a black hole will be able to see up to 13 copies of individual stars and even the entire galaxy as a whole. The reason is that at some points called caustics, the light will focus, forming a kind of reflection of a star or any other object.



This phenomenon is associated with the rotation of a black hole and gravitational perturbations in the surrounding space.

“In order to get rid of blinking and make the picture for the film perfectly smooth, we changed our algorithms in a way that no one has ever done. Instead of tracking the movement of individual rays using Einstein's equations, we began to track the paths and distortion in the shapes of entire beam beams. When this model was ready, we realized that it could also be used for research, ”said Oliver James, lead scientist at Double Negative.



It is not known how fair the Thorn model is, but it is quite suitable as one of the theories.

Now the created simulator can be used to study other, more complex processes occurring in the vicinity of rotating black holes. This is how part of Hollywood's gigantic budgets was redirected to the benefit of science.

Probably, this trend should be continued, and for each science-fiction film on space subjects to invite a group of scientists. For a million or two dollars, they will do some useful research on data visualization. And the film will turn out prettier, and a good thing for science.