NOVA Black Hole Apocalypse vs Make Chirps

Start with a star and play over 50 levels to watch it become a black hole. Hurl your star across spacetime to hit your target. Navigate fields of cosmic objects and hazards—like neutron stars and quasars—avoiding some and slingshotting around others in your quest to become more massive. Reach the end and your star collapses….to become a black hole. Then watch the two-hour NOVA program, “Black Hole Apocalypse,” hosted by astrophysicist Janna Levin.

This educational app displays gravitational wave chirps created by mergers of massive black holes in several different ways, giving users an intuitive understanding of these exotic disturbances of space-time itself produced by cataclysmic events in distant galaxies. FEATURES: • Simulation: Experience the intricate behavior of gravitational waves through physics simulation of inspiralling black holes that merge to form a final black hole which then “shakes off” its excess energy. • Visualizations: See the essence of gravitational waves via waveform plots, frequency evolutions, and spectrograms, to understand the patterns and how they depend on black hole masses. • Auditory Experience: Listen closely as you hear the evolution of gravitational waves, detecting the characteristic increase in time in strength and frequency. Try varying masses to see how pitch is affected. • Dynamic Animations: Witness the captivating dance of black holes in collision animations. Explore the propagation of these waves through space-time with mesmerizing spiral animations. • Educational Insights: Gain a comprehensive understanding of gravitational waves and the pioneering work of LIGO through informative text pages, enhancing your knowledge of these cosmic phenomena. COMPATIBILITY Compatible with iPhone and iPad, iOS 16 or later. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Supported by the National Science Foundation with grant PHY-2110181.