Seeing Milky Way's new black hole is 'only the beginning': US researcher

At just 33 years old, Caltech assistant professor Katie Bouman is already a veteran of two major scientific discoveries.

The program that led to the release of the first image of a black hole in a distant galaxy was created by the expert in computational imaging.

She was invited to testify before Congress about her work after becoming a global science superstar.

She played a key role in the creation of a new image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Her working group within the event horizon telescope collaboration was tasked with putting together the data from the telescopes around the world.

Shortly after the breakthrough announcement, Bouman spoke with Agence France-Presse.

How does this discovery compare to the year?

Being able to see a black hole for the first time was spectacular, and the first one was so exciting because it was the first one. Sagittarius A* has always been the holy goal of the event horizon telescope.

The reason why is because we have more information about what Sgr A* will look like. Being able to see an image of that makes it easier for us to see how it matches up with what we expected.

Even though it is the second image that we are showing, it is a lot more exciting because we can use it to do more tests on our understanding of gravity.

It was harder to see Sagittarius A*.

We collected the data for both M87* and Sgr A* in the same week in 2017, but it took us a long time to make a picture of Sgr A*.

A lot of other things are going on that make it difficult for us to make an image. We are looking at the black hole through the plane of the galaxy. The gas in the galaxy scatters the image. It makes it look like we are looking at a frosted window, like in a shower. That is one challenge.

The biggest challenge we face is the fact that the black hole is evolving quickly. The gas in M87 and Sgr A is moving in the same direction. It takes days to weeks to make a full circle around M87, for Sgr A*, but it is evolving from minute to minute.

Why are black holes so fascinating?

It just breaks with what we are used to here on Earth. Light cannot escape from it, and it is bending around it. I think it captures the imagination because it is just this mysterious thing.

Black holes are so mysterious that working on them is cooler. The fact that we are able to make an image of one is something that should not be seen. I think that that is really exciting.

What do you think will happen in the future? A film.

I think this is just the beginning. Now that we know that we have these extreme laboratories of gravity, we can go back and improve our instruments and improve our methods in order to see more and to extract more science.

We made our first attempts at making a movie and we made a lot of progress, but we are not there yet, where we feel confident enough that we will be able to make Sgr A*.

We are going to add more telescopes around the world, collect more data, and try to show something that we feel confident in.

There will be a new year in 2022.

Citation: Seeing Milky Way's new black hole is 'only the beginning': US researcher (2022, May 12) retrieved 12 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-milky-black-hole.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.