VR Expedition to a black hole

A journey to black holes in virtual reality! Experience a black hole up close without running the risk of spiraling into it like spaghetti. Why does the space around the black hole look so twisted? And what is shining around it? We want to answer these questions on our expedition.

We developed the “Expedition to the Black Hole” as part of the Science in Dialogue (WiD) 2023 university competition on the topic of “Our Universe”. Our interdisciplinary team consists of experts from the fields of astronomy, computer graphics, communication, design and science communication. Our aim is to make the most fascinating objects in astronomy accessible to everyone. We used realistic interactive simulations to depict the black hole in virtual reality, drawing on current research at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg.

The project was funded by the BMBF and the Wissenschaft im Dialog as part of the Hochschulwettbewerb 2023 Unser Universum.

The Team:

Dr. Annika Kreikenbohm is an astrophysicist, freelance information designer and VR developer at the JMU Würzburg. In this project, she is the VR designer and the creative mind with an eye on comprehensible communication, so that the VR application becomes an impressive expedition.

Dr. Thomas Dauser is also an astrophysicist at the Dr. Karl-Remeis Observatory in Bamberg and a passionate adventurer (alpine climber). He provides the theoretical framework for the numerical simulation. His goal: to enable the most realistic possible representation of the black hole and its space curvature.

Prof. Tobias Günther is a computer scientist and holds the Chair of Visual Computing at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. Thanks to him, we can translate the complex formulas into a visible world. He is supported in the implementation by students Kyrill Olkhovsky and Nhat-Khang Vo.

Prof. Jörn Wilms is Professor of Astrophysics at FAU and at the Dr. Karl-Remeis Observatory. His head is full of lively stories about the universe and ideas about what there might be to discover out there.

Blandina Mangelkramer & Laura Kneppe are from FAU’s Press and Communications Office, who are actively supporting us in promoting and communicating the VR Expedition.

The VR Expedition to the black hole was exhibited at various outreach events. The images show impressions of the WiD Roadshow in Bamberg, the Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften in Nuremberg, or in the Nicolaus-Copernicus Planetarium in Nuremberg. It was embedded in the FAU KinderUni where kids explored drew their idea of a black hole and then explored the black hole in VR.