US scientist Katie Bouman turns superstar for designing algorithm for black hole image
NEW YORK - Anonymous to the public just days ago, a US computer scientist named Katie Bouman has become an overnight sensation due to her role in developing a computer algorithm that allowed researchers to take the world's first image of a black hole.
The term"black hole" refers to a point in space where matter is so compressed that it creates a gravity field from which even light cannot escape. The massive black hole in the photo released on Wednesday is 55 million light years away at the centre of a galaxy known as M87. In 2016, Bouman developed an algorithm named CHIRP to sift through a true mountain of data gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope project from telescopes around the world to create an image.
To guarantee the accuracy of the image, the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Center, operated by Harvard University, gave the data to four different teams. Each team independently used the algorithm to obtain an image."That was the happiest moment I've ever had I saw all the other teams had images that were very similar, with the lower half brighter than the top half. It was amazing to see everyone got that," Bouman told The Wall Street Journal.
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