App’s strong pull for VR sky tour
Australia’s foremost gravitational wave research group has launched a phone app for National Science Week.
Australia’s foremost gravitational wave research group has launched a phone app for National Science Week that will help children, and older astronomy buffs, see stars and galaxies in a new way.
The app from OzGrav, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, allows people to see the universe as a virtual reality experience, as if suspended in space looking in all directions. It also enables the viewer to see much more than the human eye normally would because the app offers a choice of looking in various parts of the spectrum — radio waves, infra-red, visible light, ultra violet, X-rays or gamma rays.
“You’ll see things look different depending on which wavelength you’re looking at,” said Mark Myers, OzGrav’s education and outreach content development manager. As a bonus, when you look at the centre of the galaxy using the new MeerKAT radio telescope from South Africa, you see an image created only a few weeks ago and showing the clearest view yet of this region of the sky.
Another feature in the app is a model of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, which in 2015 made the momentous discovery of gravitational waves, 100 years after Albert Einstein predicted them. App viewers see two blackholes spinning into each other and the resulting gravitational waves hitting the detector.
“I’ve deliberately made things not completely obvious the first time you go through so there’s room for discovery,” Mr Myers said.
It also shows the relative sizes of the planets, the sun and a blue supergiant star, as well as a neutron star that packs all the mass of a star into a sphere 10km to 15km in diameter. People also will see what powers a star and how it resists gravitational collapse.
To download the app and obtain headsets to get the VR experience on your phone, go to www.scivr.com.au. National Science Week runs from Saturday to August 19, with events across Australia and a focus on science in schools. Go to www.science.net.au.
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