When LIGO detected the gravity wave signature of two black holes merging, it inspired the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes Project to create this simulation of the event as it would have appeared to human eyes, and post it online. The Astronomy Picture Of the Day site maintained by the folks at NASA then picked it up, which is where I stumbled across it. For those wondering, LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a technology dreamed up by Einstein and an operation run by Cal Tech and MIT. The video is slowed way down so you can make out details, the part of the event simulated took about a third of a second to happen. I particularly liked the gravitational lensing effect, nice attention to detail.
Studio Ghibli’s Only Yesterday and live action Gods of Egypt both hit the big screen this weekend. The 1991 animated classic Only Yesterday has finally been released in the US now, 25 years after the rest of the world got to see it, and is filled with exactly the kind of touching heart-felt story one expects from them. Its run in the theaters is extremely limited, opening in a single theater in New York on January 1st and expanding on Friday to another double dozen cities. If you are not close enough to make one of them, it will be in still more cities each week over the next four, and then released on DVD for the first time in this country. Gods of Egypt is the flip side of that coin, brand new live action/adventure epic fantasy, although I do admit to studying the trailer carefully looking for a Stargate. I look forward to seeing at least one of them.
There is very little genre coming out this week, with the animated Disney fantasies The Good Dinosaur and The Lion Guard being pretty much the only Western exceptions. Anime does a bit better, with Tokyo ESP: Complete Series taking place in a world where flying fish bestow paranormal powers, and only the penguin can overcome them. Meanwhile, police without powers are rounding up all the gifted they can get their hands on, and are either killing them outright or forcing them into concentration camps where they are worked to death. This is not a good time for Rinka to gain powers, but she does the best she can with them to protect her family and friends. In Ga-Rei-Zero: Complete S.A.V.E. two sisters are teenage exorcists fighting demons using sacred swords each night, until one of them becomes possessed. Now the other sister has to decide whether to kill her, or let her run around slaughtering innocents.
The Japanese band Indigo la End is a bit hard to categorize; Alt, Rock, and Pop, they do it all. The first track is Images Do Not Appear On The Eyes from their first Warner Music single in 2014, the second is Nameless Happy Ending from their Space Shower Records days in 2013, the 3rd is Sweet Spider, also from the Space Shower era, circa 2012 or so. They have more recent tracks, but some of them are a bit overproduced, so I had to go with a few of the classics.
Robert Picardo hosts Planetary Post, launched this month by the Planetary Society as a monthly Video Newsletter designed to keep you up to date on space news. For its pilot episode Robert had Bill Nye the Science Guy as his guest (not a difficult thing to get the leader of the Planetary Society to volunteer to hype his organization), and it was all silly fun. I am looking forward to seeing a lot more episodes in this series, some of which may accidentally include news and video from Space!
Alice Through the Looking Glass will be on the big screen on May 27th, but while you are waiting, here are a few things to watch…