M87* black hole: Perth CSIRO team’s AI trained on cats and dogs confirms Event Horizon Telescope image

Résumé détaillé

They trained their AI on photos of animals and cars, then fed it data from a galaxy 55 million light-years away. What it found backs one of science’s most famous images.

A small team of CSIRO researchers from Perth have recreated one of the greatest scientific achievements this century by imaging a supermassive black hole, and they did it with a bespoke AI model they trained themselves on pictures of cats and dogs.

This improbable technique was crucial to establishing total independence from the team of hundreds of scientists who famously captured the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019 using the Event Horizon Telescope, a global network of synchronised radio observatories.

By applying their new technique to the same EHT data, the Perth team validated the landmark image of the black hole at the centre of galaxy M87, 55 million light years away, confirming the ring shape that had been under fire from rival theories in recent years.

As far as technical challenges go, it was equivalent to standing in your backyard and attempting to get a decent photo of a doughnut sitting on the surface of the moon.

The findings have been published on Thursday in the prestigious journal, Nature.

CSIRO astronomer and lead author Dr Samuel Lai called the original EHT image of black hole M87* “iconic”, but being iconic is not the same as being correct.

As Albert Einstein said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong”.

“There was one independent group that questioned the validity of the ring structure, and they suggested that an alternative interpretation is also equally valid,” Dr Lai said.

“So we developed a new data product, which has a fair few advantages compared to what is traditionally used in radio astronomy, and we also developed (GenDIReCT), a bespoke imaging algorithm.”

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