Artificial intelligence is helping clear up a major space discovery.
The first image of a black hole was released in 2019, and while it was a “significant scientific achievement,” according to Reuters, it looked like a “fuzzy orange donut.”
But the fuzz is now gone thanks to a bit of AI.
The original image was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a series of telescopes scattered worldwide that collect data in a system called very long baseline interferometry, The Washington Post reported.
Scientists used an algorithm to fill the data gaps and reconstruct the image, producing a clearer picture of the black hole in the center of the Messier 87, or M87, galaxy, Reuters reported.
The 2019 release of the first image of a black hole was hailed as a significant scientific achievement. But truth be told, it was a bit blurry - or, as one astrophysicist involved in the effort called it, a "fuzzy orange donut." https://t.co/9OiXFqrlKA
— Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) April 13, 2023
The AI is called PRIMO and used thousands of simulations of matter being sucked into black holes, the Post reported.
PRIMO “is partially relying on the truth of these computer models to fill in the gaps in the EHT,” Harvard astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman told the newspaper. “This lets it create images that are a little crisper, but whether the images are more accurate will require verification when we have more data.”
Doeleman is the founding director of EHT collaboration.
Astrophysicist Lia Medeiros said the galaxy has a new nickname thanks to the new images.
“I affectionately refer to the previous image as the ‘fuzzy orange donut,’ and have been referring to this image as the ‘skinny donut,’ which sounds incredibly unappetizing. We’ve also discussed ‘diet donut,’ which is equally unappetizing,”, said Medeiros, lead author of the study recently published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The new photos aren’t just eye candy. They can help scientists understand the physics of black holes while the technology used to create the images can be used to study other planets that orbit other stars, the Post reported.
Scientists have a new target for the PRIMO system already tapped — Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole in the center of our own galaxy, the Post reported.
