Black hole image gets AI upgrade (Messier 87* Even…

The Event Horizon Telescope released the first ever image of a black hole in 2019. A telescope that combines multiple radio dishes across the entire Earth to observe tiny pieces of the overall image, then fills in the remaining gaps using machine learning (a branch of artificial intelligence, AI). This month the image has had an upgrade (“can you enhance that?”), with a new AI algorithm used to generate the image from the same data. So how does this new algorithm differ from the first? #blackhole #eventhorizontelescope #ai

My previous videos on the black hole image:

Videos from the Event Horizon Telescope team explaining the image:
Katie Bouman Seminar at Caltech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGL_OL3OrCE
Avery Broderick Public Lecture at Perimeter Institute(@PIOutreach): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYsHk4fWrxU
@TED talk on how the computer algorithm which fills in the gaps works from Katie Bouman – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIvezCVcsYs

Video from Derek Muller @veritasium on understanding what you’re seeing in the black hole image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo

Medeiros et al. (2023; new algorithm produces new image): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acc32d/pdf
Medeiros et al. (2023; training suite of simulations for algorithm): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acaa9a/pdf
Event Horizon Telescope publications from 2019, Paper I-VIII: https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205/page/Focus_on_EHT

More on the Event Horizon Telescope (@ehtelescope): https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

00:00 – Introduction
01:07 – What data does the Event Horizon Telescope collect?
07:42 – Why do they need AI to make the final image?
10:43 – How does this new algorithm differ from the original?
15:57 – The astrophysics we can learn
17:31 – Bloopers

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👩🏽‍💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don’t know. If you’ve ever wondered about something in space and couldn’t find an answer online – you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.

http://drbecky.uk.com