10 Best CGI Effects In Star Trek

2. The Updated Black Hole Effect

Tardigrade Star Trek
CBS

Black holes have shown up many times throughout Star Trek, but none have been as scientifically accurate (and as beautiful) as the one from the Strange New Worlds episode Memento Mori and the fake black hole illusion from the Discovery episode If Memory Serves.

Both the real black hole and the illusion appear very similar to the black hole that appeared in the movie Interstellar. They have a huge black sphere at the centre, surrounded by an accretion disk of fast-moving particles that appears to fold around the back due to the path of its light being curved from the gravity. The effect from that movie was created by the CGI company Double Negative, with the collaboration of theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Kip Thorne, and some of his collegues. Thorne and the other scientists on the team ran calculations based on real theoretical science and offered suggestions that helped make the black hole from Interstellar as realistic as possible.

It's not been confirmed that the black holes appearing in Trek used the same methods as those used for Interstellar, but it is known that Double Negative made uncredited contributions to the effects for the second season of Discovery (the season that the Talosian black hole illusion appeared in), so it's very likely.

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Marcia Fry is a writer for WhatCulture and an amateur filmmaker.