An image of the moment a 29-year-old researcher whose algorithm helped capture the first-ever image of a black hole has gone viral. Scientist Katie Bouman was snapped at the moment she first saw what she had accomplished.
“Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed,” Ms Bouman posted on Facebook, accompanying the photo. “I’m so excited that we finally get to share what we have been working on for the past year!”
Bouman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, started working on the algorithm as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied electrical engineering and computer science.
She was one of about three dozen computer scientists who used algorithms to process data gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope project, a worldwide collaboration of astronomers, engineers and mathematicians, The Washington Post reported.
“The image shown today is the combination of images produced by multiple methods,” Bouman wrote. “No one algorithm or person made this image, it required the amazing talent of a team of scientists from around the globe and years of hard work to develop the instrument, data processing, imaging methods, and analysis techniques that were necessary to pull off this seemingly impossible feat. It has been truly an honour, and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you all.”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
