GARGANTUA

A REAL-TIME GENERAL-RELATIVISTIC RAY TRACER

— FPS · — · — STEPS · R — rs

DRAG ORBIT · SCROLL APPROACH · H INTERFACE · C CINEMA · I PHYSICS

WHAT THIS IS

Every pixel is a light ray traced backward through the curved spacetime of a Schwarzschild black hole — geodesics integrated live on your GPU, hundreds of steps per pixel, per frame.

No textures. No video. The entire scene is mathematics: gravity bending light in real time.

THE SHADOW

The perfect black disk is the event horizon at one Schwarzschild radius. Light that strays inside 1.5 rs — the photon sphere — can loop around the hole before escaping. The razor-thin bright rim hugging the shadow is that light: photons that orbited the black hole before reaching your eye.

THE HALO

The glowing arcs above and below the shadow are the far side of the accretion disk — its light bent over the top and mirrored underneath by gravity. You are literally seeing behind the black hole. Background stars smear into rings for the same reason: an Einstein ring.

ONE SIDE BURNS BRIGHTER

The plasma orbits at roughly half the speed of light. The side sweeping toward you is Doppler-beamed several times brighter and hotter; the receding side dims to ember red. That asymmetry is special relativity happening in front of you.

THE DISK

Superheated gas from 3 to 13 rs, shearing like cosmic vinyl — the inner ring laps the outer because Keplerian orbit speed falls as r^-3/2. Temperature falls as r^-3/4: white-gold at the inner edge, deep ember at the rim.

CONTROLS

Drag — orbit · Scroll / pinch — approach
C — cinematic · I — this panel
S — ambient audio · Q — quality · H — hide interface

C — EXIT CINEMA

INTEGRATING GEODESICS