Very cool Sci-Fi character design by Ivan Yakushev!
Check out the rest of his great portfolio on ArtStation.
Tag: space
Aliens?
Aliens!
…maybe not…
I wrote a post several years ago now while researching Magneto Hydro Dynamic levitation technology for my books (e.g. the Sky Whale from Book Three):
I was recently reminded of the concept again reading this New York Times article from a few days ago:
“The strange objects, one of them like a spinning top moving against the wind, appeared almost daily from the summer of 2014 to March 2015, high in the skies over the East Coast. Navy pilots reported to their superiors that the objects had no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes, but that they could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds.”
It certainly sounds like the pilots could be describing something based on WEAV…
(also: Solid State Aircraft)
The First Direct Image of a Black Hole!
This is it! The first actual image of a monster black hole!
The ‘hole is the black iris embedded in its accretion disc of glowing gas. The brighter area at the bottom is an effect of the matter orbiting the event horizon at close to the speed of light. The lower-left portion is moving towards us, so appears brighter; while in the upper-right is moving away, and so we see it dimmer.
…and this is how it would look up close!
Super-computer Simulation of the M87 Black Hole
This image is a result of a simulation run before the actual photograph of the M87 Black-hole was captured. We know this must be close to what the ‘hole would look like because when the simulation is blurred, as if by 53 Million light-years of intervening space, it looks almost identical to the actual photo!
Simulated blurring of simulated Black Hole
I am flabbergasted, especially when you realise that the relative size of the entire image is the same as a doughnut left on the surface of the Moon!
Truly amazing stuff! True life Sci-Fi!! I love it! 🙂
A very comprehensive article here giving much more insight.
Update: This is a really nice video which explains why the Black Hole photo looks like a top down view of a doughnut. It had bothered me that we seemed to be looking directly into the ‘hole. “How to Understand the Image of a Black Hole”
Update 2: The image is actually from the Black-hole at the center of the galaxy M87, scientists are still processing the data on Sagittarius A*