Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

This Grad Student's Algorithm Helped Create the First Image of a Black Hole, and Her Reaction At First Seeing It Is Everything

This Grad Student's Algorithm Helped Create the First Image of a Black Hole, and Her Reaction At First Seeing It Is Everything
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration // TED/YouTube

Out of this world.

For the first time ever, humans saw a photo of a black hole on Tuesday.

Fifty million lightyears stretched between our home planet and the black hole's greedy event horizon, but with ten radio telescopes, hundreds of scientists, and one revelatory algorithm, the distance vanished as stunningly as light in the subject the researchers sought to capture.


Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

While globally interconnected telescopes assembling images from microscopic photons is nothing to sneer at, it was the algorithm (and others built off of it) that sorted from infinite fragments the images researchers were after, making the viral image possible.

That algorithm was developed three years ago by MIT grad student Dr. Katie Bouman, who worked with 200 scientists and the Event Horizon Telescope to generate the final assembly. She soon posted a photo on Facebook of her reaction to the triumphant moment the image was first assembled.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213321822457967&set=a.1407432103727&type=3&theater

The formula informing the original algorithm informed many others that helped bring scientific assurance of its effectiveness to researchers.

Bouman told CNN:

"We didn’t want to just develop one algorithm. We wanted to develop many different algorithms that all have different assumptions built into them. If all of them recover the same general structure, then that builds your confidence. No matter what we did, you would have to bend over backwards crazy to get something that wasn’t this ring.”

Bouman made sure to credit the various researchers whose work helped lead to this most recent landmark of human ingenuity.

https://www.facebook.com/katie.bouman.3/posts/10213326025523041

The photo of Bauman's first reaction has quickly gone viral.

Another image of Bouman placed alongside a historical parallel is taking the internet by storm as well.

Bouman is being compared to Margaret Hamilton—whose coding is partially credited with achieving the moon landing.

People can't stop sharing an image of Hamilton standing next to stacks of the handwritten coding placed side-by-side with one of Bouman next to stacks of hard drives forming the roughly 5 million gigabytes used to achieve the black hole images.

The image led people to share some of the great women of science whose achievements also paved the way for Hamilton and, now, Bouman.

Girls don't just run the world, they're revealing the universe.

More from News

unidentified female Trump supporter at MAGA rally
Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images

MAGA Mom Goes Viral After Revealing Her Son Refuses To Talk To Her Because She Voted For Trump

While people grapple with how to handle family members and friends who voted against their basic human rights, the people in question are dealing with the fallout from their choices.

MAGA Republican President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's embrace of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 made clear the rights of women; ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the disabled; immigrants; and the LGBTQ+ community were at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
Mike Lee
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

GOP Senator Faces MAGA Backlash Over Plan To Sell Millions Of Acres Of Public Land

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee is facing harsh criticism—including from Team MAGA—over his proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land in the American West owned by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to supposedly create more affordable housing.

Lee claimed in his proposal that there is an "extensive process for interested parties like States and local governments to nominate land for disposal to meet housing and community needs," noting that it specifically exempts national parks, monuments, and federally designated wilderness areas from potential land sales.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Trump Ripped For Complaining That Americans Get 'Too Many' Federal Holidays Off Work

While it was ultimately former President Joe Biden who established Juneteenth as a federal holiday, President Donald Trump—who once campaigned on that promise—took to Truth Social on Juneteenth to whine about the number of "non-working holidays" Americans get, claiming that it costs businesses "billions of dollars."

Juneteenth is derived from June 19, 1865, when Union troops led by General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and declared that all enslaved African Americans in the state were free.

Keep ReadingShow less
A woman sitting up in bed as a man sleeps next to her.
Florida State University Researchers Find Predictors for Infidelity in New Study
(Wodicka/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

The Biggest 'They're Definitely Cheating On Me!' Signs People Ignored

When our partner commits suspicious behavior, it's easy for us to jump to conclusions.

Most of the time, the conclusions we jump to are 100% wrong and are just our imaginations playing tricks with us.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @cassdamm's TikTok video
@cassdamm/TikTok

Woman Shares Why She Refuses To Tell Her Late Dad's Mistress Of 30 Years That He Died

While it doesn't always happen, sometimes we get to see karma at work—and sometimes, the revenge is sweet.

TikToker @cassdamm, who previously went viral for sharing the unhinged, five-page letter her 15-year-old son's principal sent, complaining about him "wandering the halls" and "being truant" for buying a drink on his way back to class, is openly celebrating the death of her father, but it's not for the reason you'd think.

Keep ReadingShow less