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Animalia review: Intriguing sci-fi thriller, shame about the aliens

24 February 2023

Faith, freedom and spirituality are key to a well-made sci-fi psychological thriller, Animalia. But writer-director Sofia Alaoui leaves the aliens dangling in an unsatisfying ending

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) ??? a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration ??? was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole???s boundary ??? the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name ??? is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across. While this may sound large, this ring is only about 40 microarcseconds across ??? equivalent to measuring the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks ??? hydrogen masers ??? which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data ??? roughly 350 terabytes per day ??? which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers ??? known as correlators ??? at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.

Don’t Miss: Learning about how the first black hole image was taken

15 February 2023

New Scientist's weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss

Cady Coleman appears in The Longest Goodbye by Ido Mizrahy, an official selection of the World Documentary Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. | Photo by NASA/Bill Ingalls. All photos are copyrighted and may be used by the press only for the purpose of news or editorial coverage of Sundance Institute programs. Photos must be accompanied by a credit to the photographer and/or 'Courtesy of Sundance Institute.' Unauthorized use, alteration, reproduction or sale of logos and/or photos is strictly prohibited.

The Longest Goodbye review: A poignant documentary on space psychology

15 February 2023

Astronaut Cady Coleman playing duets with her Earth-bound son is among the moving and candid moments from The Longest Goodbye, Ido Mizrahy's poignant exploration of the psychology of space travel

(from left) M3GAN and Cady (Violet McGraw) in M3GAN, directed by Gerard Johnstone.

M3gan review: A chilling sci-fi film about the dangers of AI care

25 January 2023

It pays to know what you really need from a sophisticated learning machine, particularly if you don't want a killer robot on your hands, says Simon Ings

White Noise review: Did this adaptation of a postmodern novel succeed?

9 January 2023

Noah Baumbach’s version of Don DeLillo's award-winning novel may reflect the book’s complexity, but ultimately it could well justify fears the book is unfilmable

The best films of 2023, from Dune: Part Two to Patrick and the Whale

29 December 2022

From blockbuster sci-fi to epic biopics and jaw-dropping documentaries, here are the films we can’t wait to see in 2023

Plym to Pamlico review: Nuclear test veterans find poignant voice

13 December 2022

Would your radiation badge work? What would it be like to witness a nuclear bomb blast? The early uncertain days of the UK’s nuclear test programme are poignantly recalled by service veterans in a series of four films at the Plym to Pamlico exhibition

The Volano: Rescue from Whakaari. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix ?? 2022

The Volcano review: Heartbreaking documentary relives Whakaari tragedy

7 December 2022

An intense and moving documentary tells the story of tourists caught on the volcanic island of Whakaari when it erupted in 2019

Where might James Bond go next, in terms of science and technology?

23 November 2022

From Goldfinger to No Time to Die, James Bond has long showcased the latest tech advances. Might 007's next adventure involve protecting a low-cost, lightweight, high-capacity battery from sinister forces, asks Kathryn Harkup