The group of young scientists who made the world see a black hole for the first time

On April 10, 2019, an international team of scientists issued a historic statement: for the first time it was possible to photograph a supermassive black hole, located in the distant galaxy Messier 87 at a distance of approximately 50 million light years from us. This event was so important for the scientific world that a conference to clarify more about the subject was held in 4 languages ​​and in 6 different cities at the same time: Brussels, Shanghai, Tokyo, Washington, Taipei and Santiago de Chile.

O awesome.club could not miss such a significant event for human beings and decided to honor the people who made this news possible and whose names entered the history of world science.

Pewehi is the Hawaiian name for the black hole, the true heavyweight champion of the universe. The word is translated as “dark beautified and unfathomable creation” or “dark beautified fountain of infinite creation”. This big monster is in the galaxy M87 at a distance of approximately 500 trillion kilometers from Earth and is 6,500 million times bigger than the Sun. In order to obtain the image of the black hole, the Event Horizon Telescope — EHT project, translated as Event Horizon Telescope, was created, which brings together a network of large telescopes placed in different places on the Planet.

The first photo in history of a black hole

Until the historic date, all ideas about black holes were strictly theoretical, and the reality of their existence was only a convincing scientific hypothesis. For many years, the EHT project tried to capture and film the rays of light passing in orbit around the black hole’s event horizon, until they were finally captured.

Finally, thanks to the enormous work of an international team of scientists and specialists, the mathematical concept of the “event horizon”, visualized only in formulas, became a true object that could be measured, verified and observed.

Scientists on the Event Horizon Telescope project and their “minutes of glory” in major newspapers

Katie Bouman is a 29-year-old who, after the presentation of the first photo of a black hole in history, literally became famous. The record in which she looks with emotion at her computer screen and the triumphant image appears has gone viral and spread all over the world.

Dr. Katie is a computer specialist and professor at the California Institute of Technology. At age 23, she joined the Event Horizon Telescope project as a junior researcher. In the end, he led the group that for 3 years was dedicated to the development of algorithms, selection and synchronization of data with telescopes placed in different places on the Planet. As a result, we were able to see an image of this space object that was difficult to capture, which, until then, had been impossible.

Katie Bouman with her husband

In the photo below, Katie poses with hard drives with a total capacity of 5 petabytes. In them, the still unprocessed data that were selected by the network of telescopes throughout the Planet are stored. The selected information was so much that it was impossible to transfer everything over the Internet. Therefore, it was necessary to send the hard disks by plane from different points.

Today, Katie is compared to Margaret Hamilton who, in 1969, wrote the computer code that helped astronauts reach the moon.

Margaret Hamilton, Senior Computer Program Engineer at NASA, 1969

Even though Bouman became a worldwide sensation, his success would not have been possible without an international team of over 200 people who worked on the EHT project. Below, we will present some of them.

Andrew Chael is a graduate student in the Faculty of Astrophysics, developer and leader of the EHT Visualization Working Group. He is the author of the eht-imaging programming language library, which was used by programmers to work together on analyzing data and creating images.

Pictured are Andrew Chael, Katie Bouman and Lindy Blackburn

The information that Andrew wrote 850,000 lines of code out of a total of 900,000 went viral, causing both a wave of admiration and one of negativity with Katie Bouman. After all, it has been getting the most attention from the public. But the same Andrew denied this when he clarified that his personal contribution to the team’s work totaled 68 thousand lines, and that personal achievements are not the most important in a result of such a large group.

Lia Medeiros is a 21-year-old woman, a doctoral student at the University of California with a degree in Physics and Astrophysics. She devoted all of her spare time to the Steward Observatory and the Black Hold initiative at Harvard. Recalling why she was drawn to astronomy, Lia said: “For me, the tipping point was when I understood that the entire universe could be explained mathematically.”

Sara Issaoun is a doctoral student at Radboud University in Nimega (Netherlands) and lecturer. She studies the data and analyzed the millimeter VLBI observations of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, which lies at the center of our galaxy. Obtaining her photograph is the next step for the EHT team.

Feryal Ozel and Chi-kwan Chan

Doctor Chi-kwan Chan is a programmer specializing in Computational Astrophysics and High Performance Calculus. He works with advanced technology to help in the development of scientific research. With his work team, Chi-kwan Chan developed new algorithms that helped capture the image of the black hole and visualize it with the help of numerical simulations in virtual reality.

Astronomy and Physics professors Dimitrios Psaltis and Feryal Ozel not only came together for the love of science, but also for a mutual love. They are participants in the BHI Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University.

Professor Feryal Ozel is not only a leading expert in the field of science, but also a competitive athlete. She actively participates in athletics, swimming and cycling, activities that her husband and 2 daughters always support.

Daniel Palumbo is a doctoral student on the Faculty of Astronomy at Harvard University. By working with Event Horizon, he has helped researchers understand the structure of the black hole and define the future development of the EHT.

Perhaps most people don’t believe that the man in the photo above received a degree in Mathematics, a Master’s in Robotics and in Automated Management from the Technological University of Warsaw. On the Event Horizon Telescope project, Maciek Wielgus worked on data calibration algorithms and image processing.

Lindy Blackburn, Sara Issaoun and Maciek Wielgus

And you, what do you think about this great advance for science? Do you know of other scientific projects that have been led by young people?