http://www.galaxydynamics.org/ Portraits of a Universe in Motion en-us ℗ & © 2005 John Dubinski Portraits of a Universe in Motion John Dubinski and John Kameel Farah GRAVITAS is an ongoing project by John Dubinski to animate the dynamics of galaxies using supercomputer simulations. Gravity drives the interactions and mergers of galaxies leading to beautiful transient forms: spirals, tails, shells and ripples. Astronomical images reveal these structures but unfortunately they represent a single snapshot of a long and complex evolution. We tiny humans constrained by a century-long lifespan have no hope of directly witnessing this fantastic evolution. We use realistic simulation and animation to illustrate these slow and majestic dynamical processes and so breathe life into the snapshots of galaxies. GRAVITAS is also a synthesis of science and the arts. Long animation sequences of interacting galaxies and structure formation are set to the original music of John Kameel Farah inspired by these animations, creating a compelling synthesis of sound, motion, vast dimensions and timescales and Newton's universal laws of gravity and motion. Available on DVD at much better resolution at http://www.galaxydynamics.org/dvd. Listen to the music of John Kameel Farah at http://www.johnfarah.com. John Dubinski and John Kameel Farah gravitas@galaxydynamics.org science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Fri, 13 Jan 2006 04:00:00 GMT http://galaxydynamics.org/dvd gravitas@galaxydynamics.org Flight through the dark matter universe en-us John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) About 14 billion years ago, the universe began in a Big Bang. In one single instant, all matter and energy were created. Rapid expansion caused the matter to cool and change into atoms and also the mysterious dark matter. At first, the dark matter was spread out evenly but faint echoes of the seething quantum foam that existed at the instant of creation remained like random ripples on the surface of a frozen pond. Gravity took hold of these noisy echoes and caused them to collapse into halos of dark matter that became the seeds of the galaxies. In this animation, we fly straight through a 130 million particle simulation of dark matter travelling hundreds of millions light years over 14 billion years. We illuminate the dark matter particles so that we can watch the formation of the cosmic web - the foundation of all structure in the prevailing model of cosmology. At the start, the regular grid of particles reflects the featureless nature of the universe at the beginning. As the flight continues, we witness the formation of the first structures through the collapse of density fluctuations. These merge with other structures and grow into the dark halos of sizes varying from galaxies to galaxy clusters. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT 2:01 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Flight into a collapsing cluster of one hundred galaxies John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) The dark matter provides the framework for the universe but what we see are the galaxies - vast islands of stars and gas that form at the centre of the dark halos. The galaxies themselves can gather into enormous clusters with hundreds and even thousands of members. There is little breathing room for a galaxy in a cluster and soon strong interactions and collisions ensue as the galaxies fall together. Galaxies are diaphanous objects - puffs of smoke easily torn apart by the forces of gravity and many merge together into an amorphous central blob of stars while others are left severely damaged. Here we watch a hundred galaxies fall together into a forming cluster. Our perspective is from a starship flying into the cluster starting several million light years away and cruising to within a hundred thousand light years of the giant elliptical galaxy forming at the cluster centre. As we fly through, we observe the merging and tidal disruption of many spiral galaxies as they orbit within the cluster. Ten billion years elapses within about 3 minutes so time passes at a rate of 50 million years per second! Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:01:00 GMT 3:18 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies The collapse of a galaxy cluster in high speed John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) By increasing the playback speed, we get a different impression of the dynamical processes in clusters. Here we look at the cluster from the previous track again but from 3 different fixed perspectives and also speed up the playback to 200 million years per second. The cluster dynamics take on a violent and frenzied character in stark contrast to our usual impressions of stately slow changes from astronomical imagery. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:02:00 GMT 2:21 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Flight into a globular star cluster John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) Not so long after the Big Bang, somewhere in the universe the first star was born. Great clouds of gas condensing within the galaxies were stellar cradles. The largest clouds condensed into globules that flared into millions of stars and became globular clusters. These ancient families are fossils of the first moments of creation and shine mainly today by the light of red and blue giants. For billions of years, the stars have moved on their way rarely encountering their companions shuttling back and forth indifferently guided by the relentless force of gravity. This animation is inspired by the classic Isaac Asimov short story Nightfall written in Astounding Stories in 1941. There an astronomer on a planet with multiple suns where it is always day learns through his N-body calculations that all of the suns will soon set for the first time in thousands of years. The last time this happened civilization collapsed because of the mass insanity that followed when night fell. As the last sun sets and mass hysteria ensues, the astronomer looks up into the sky and perceives the fantastic view of a sky filled with tens of thousands of stars for he lives on a planet at the heart of a globular cluster! I have visualized the stars in the animation to reflect the true colour and brightness distribution in globular clusters and reproduce the look of Hubble Space Telescope images of globular star clusters accurately. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:03:00 GMT 6:02 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies A galaxy interaction psychedelic dream sequence John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) Nature provides us with random acts of gravitational violence in the form of galaxy collisions. Graceful spiral forms, tails and bridges are sculpted by these interactions. But we know how gravity works and galaxies are structured, so we can take the sculptors tool from Natures hand and play with it in a supercomputer removing the random element. Klemperer found that special symmetric arrangements of particles could follow predictable orbits. These exact N-body solutions seem to have no natural counterpart and even Klemperer stated that he really just studied them for fun! In the same spirit, I have put galaxies in similar unnatural symmetric configurations to explore their evolution. One amazing consequence of Newtons laws of motion is that any system with some symmetry built in should preserve that symmetry even if complex dynamical behaviour is occuring. For the sequence of simulations here, it seems that symmetry is preserved even when spiral patterns emerge after the galaxies interact strongly. But by the end of each sequence, the symmetry is lost. So is Newton wrong afterall? No! These nonlinear dynamical systems are unstable and become chaotic. Tiny deviations introduced by computer imprecision are eventually amplified and lead the system away from symmetry. So these simulations are not just for fun after all. They are an interesting illustration of the emergence of chaos in nonlinear dynamical systems. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:04:00 GMT 4:10 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies The merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) The harsh reality of the distant universe with all of its violent interactions seems remote from our human existence and all might seem to be quiet and normal in our home the Milky Way. But it seems likely that in a mere 3 billion years, our neighbouring galaxy Andromeda and the Milky Way will fall together and have a close collision. They will likely merge and be reborn as a single giant elliptical galaxy over the course of another billion years or so. How might this metamorphosis play out and what might you see if you looked up at night over the next 4 billion years! The space between stars is so vast compared to their size that during a galaxy collision no individual stars actually collide with one another. So our sun and its family of planets will be taking a passive but exciting ride through the pair of coalescing galaxies and take on a spectacular view of the unfolding disaster in relative safety. I have set up a model system of colliding galaxies that reflects the current state of our the Milky Way and Andromeda system. There are still some uncertainties about the exact trajectories and masses of the two galaxies but I have set up a plausible case where they fall together and collide almost directly passing within 60000 light years of each other. Also, I only present the view of the naked stars unobscured by the interstellar gas and dust clouds within the galaxy. We get a chance to see it all from 4 perspectives: two fixed positions in space a million light years away (Spiral Metamorphosis) and two sky views, the first that projects the full 360 degrees of the sky onto an oval map and the second a view of one hemispheric dome of the night sky. In the sky views (Future Sky), one particle is identified as the sun within the model of the Milky Way and our view is always from this perpective with our attention directed towards the central bulge of the Galaxy making for a mind boggling spectacle. The view from far reveals an exquisite ballet of mutual annihilation and transformation into an elliptical galaxy. The Milky Way is seen coming in from the bottom in a face-on and edge-on view. After the interaction, long tidal tails of stars are flung out in open spiral patterns from both galaxies by the strong gravitational tides during the interaction. While separating, the two galaxies develop detailed spiral structure and then fall back for a second collision finally to merge. The mutual annihilation of the two galaxies leads to a big splash showing up as a complicated system of loops and ripples that represent turning points of stellar orbits. The two galaxies finally settle down into a single elliptical galaxy surrounded by remnant debris of their violent interaction. In the sky views, the arch of the Milky Way is apparent at first as a band of stars and tiny Andromeda is seen scrolling past beneath the arch but slowly growing in size as it approaches. When the 2 galaxies intersect, the sun is flung out far from the colliding pair of galaxies and our view oscillates between a remote view of events to a wild ride right through the centre of the galactic bulge! The orbit of the sun is no longer circular but now follows a convoluted pattern with the distorted gravitational field of the merging galaxies. A final look back from the far flung sun shows the final merger of the two galaxies. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:05:00 GMT 6:24 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies The evolution of the night sky during the merger with Andromeda John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) The harsh reality of the distant universe with all of its violent interactions seems remote from our human existence and all might seem to be quiet and normal in our home the Milky Way. But it seems likely that in a mere 3 billion years, our neighbouring galaxy Andromeda and the Milky Way will fall together and have a close collision. They will likely merge and be reborn as a single giant elliptical galaxy over the course of another billion years or so. How might this metamorphosis play out and what might you see if you looked up at night over the next 4 billion years! The space between stars is so vast compared to their size that during a galaxy collision no individual stars actually collide with one another. So our sun and its family of planets will be taking a passive but exciting ride through the pair of coalescing galaxies and take on a spectacular view of the unfolding disaster in relative safety. I have set up a model system of colliding galaxies that reflects the current state of our the Milky Way and Andromeda system. There are still some uncertainties about the exact trajectories and masses of the two galaxies but I have set up a plausible case where they fall together and collide almost directly passing within 60000 light years of each other. Also, I only present the view of the naked stars unobscured by the interstellar gas and dust clouds within the galaxy. We get a chance to see it all from 4 perspectives: two fixed positions in space a million light years away (Spiral Metamorphosis) and two sky views, the first that projects the full 360 degrees of the sky onto an oval map and the second a view of one hemispheric dome of the night sky. In the sky views (Future Sky), one particle is identified as the sun within the model of the Milky Way and our view is always from this perpective with our attention directed towards the central bulge of the Galaxy making for a mind boggling spectacle. The view from far reveals an exquisite ballet of mutual annihilation and transformation into an elliptical galaxy. The Milky Way is seen coming in from the bottom in a face-on and edge-on view. After the interaction, long tidal tails of stars are flung out in open spiral patterns from both galaxies by the strong gravitational tides during the interaction. While separating, the two galaxies develop detailed spiral structure and then fall back for a second collision finally to merge. The mutual annihilation of the two galaxies leads to a big splash showing up as a complicated system of loops and ripples that represent turning points of stellar orbits. The two galaxies finally settle down into a single elliptical galaxy surrounded by remnant debris of their violent interaction. In the sky views, the arch of the Milky Way is apparent at first as a band of stars and tiny Andromeda is seen scrolling past beneath the arch but slowly growing in size as it approaches. When the 2 galaxies intersect, the sun is flung out far from the colliding pair of galaxies and our view oscillates between a remote view of events to a wild ride right through the centre of the galactic bulge! The orbit of the sun is no longer circular but now follows a convoluted pattern with the distorted gravitational field of the merging galaxies. A final look back from the far flung sun shows the final merger of the two galaxies. Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:06:00 GMT 6:44 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Galaxies crashing in the long dark night John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) We revisit the galaxy cluster simulations of Swarm followed by random views of two-galaxy collisions. The animation begins slowly to allow an appreciation of the grace of gravitational dynamics but the tempo gradually increases to change the impression to a frenetic dance of severe intensity and violence. The animation ends with a fireworks display of rapid fire merging pairs of galaxies fading into the Hubble Space Telescope image of the The Mice one of the well-known nearby famous pairs of interacting galaxies. The final image reminds us that we live in one single instant of an evolving universe. Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:06:00 GMT 8:00 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Collision and merger of the Milky Way with Andromeda in 3D John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) I have re-run the simulation of Spiral Metamorphosis using stereoscopic rendering methods to produce a red-blue 3-D animation. To appreciate this animation, put on the 3-D glasses (red lens over your left eye) and seat yourself in direct line with the centre of the screen at a distance of about 5 times the width of your screen. Relax your eyes and watch a 3-dimensional rendition of the merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda from 3 different perspectives! In 3-D, the patterns of shells and ripples take on a completely different light and reveal the amazing depths of complexity in the dynamics of galaxies. Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:07:00 GMT 6:20 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies A discussion of the music, art and science of animations released on the ESA Hubble Anniversary DVD John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) John and John discuss the art and science of GRAVITAS animations released on the Hubble Anniversary DVD released by the European Space Agency - The Arts Tonight with CBC host Eleanor Wachtel (aired April 2005) Fri, 1 Apr 2005 19:07:00 GMT 18:00 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Collision and merger of the Milky Way with Andromeda as seen from the Sun John Dubinski (animation) and John Kameel Farah (music) This version of Future Sky was presented in Boston at SIGGRAPH 2006 in high definition. Scientific commentary also included. Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:07:00 GMT 3:23 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies Flight through the dark matter universe - new version of Cosmic Cruise John Dubinski and Hugh Couchman (animation), John Kameel Farah (music) This animation is a re-working of cosmic cruise using more current simulations with more than 1 billion dark matter particles. The original animation was rendered in cinematic 4K (4096x2160) and is presented in 720p high definition here. Tue Mar 4 15:00:49 EST 2008 3:23 science, art, music, physics, experimental, electronic, techno, classical, piano, composer, astronomy, animation, universe, cosmology, gravity, galaxy, galaxies