Luis Calçada


Astronomy Visualization



ABOUT

I develop science visualization animations and illustrations full-time at the European Southern Observatory, in Garching near Munich. I also created, together with two partners, the science communication company Science Office (which has created content for, among many others, the European Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center, DLR). Science Office has recently been acquired by dutch company EJR-Quartz. I spend a chunk of my free time making music. As my own project Azul Cobalto, recently together with the dutch musician Alexander Idema as IN.TRU.SO, and in the past I've had the privilege of collaborating with the Portuguese producer, dj and multi-instrumentalist Luis Clara Gomes in his project Moullinex, having played as a bass player in some of his early music. When I still have some free time left, I like to grab my camera and do some photography. I'm mostly interested in candid, reportage and street photography and occasionally night-sky photography.

PORTFOLIO

CoRoT-7b

The exoplanet CoRoT-7b is so close to its Sun-like host star that it must experience extreme conditions. This planet has a mass five times that of Earth’s and is in fact the closest known exoplanet to its host star, which also makes it the fastest — it orbits its star at a speed of more than 750 000 kilometres per hour. The probable temperature on its “day-face” is above 2,000 degrees, but minus 200 degrees on its night face. Theoretical models suggest that the planet may have lava or boiling oceans on its surface. Our artist has provided an impression of how it may look like if it were covered by lava. The sister planet, Corot-7c, is seen in the distance.

Merging neutron star pair

This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova. Such a very rare event is expected to produce both gravitational waves and a short gamma-ray burst, both of which were observed on 17 August 2017 by LIGO–Virgo and Fermi/INTEGRAL respectively. Such objects are the main source of very heavy chemical elements, such as gold and platinum, in the Universe. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser

Magnetar

European astronomers have for the first time demonstrated that this magnetar — an unusual type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field — probably was formed as part of a binary star system. The discovery of the magnetar’s former companion elsewhere in the cluster helps solve the mystery of how a star that started off so massive could become a magnetar, rather than collapse into a black hole. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada