The Scientist Who Photographed a Black Hole Brings Her Story to Pasadena

The first image of a black hole was not really a photograph. It was a computational puzzle, assembled from fragments of radio data collected by telescopes scattered across the globe. Katie Bouman helped solve it.

On Friday night, the Caltech professor who played a key role on the team behind that image will explain how it was done — and what comes next — in a free public lecture, in person and open to anyone who shows up. Her talk, “Images of the Hidden Universe,” is part of Caltech’s monthly Stargazing Lecture Series and takes place at 8:00 p.m. at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Bouman, a professor of computing and mathematical sciences with appointments in electrical engineering and astronomy, was a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, an international team that in April 2019 released the first direct image of a black hole. The team used a network of eight radio telescopes to construct what amounted to a computational Earth-sized dish, then relied on algorithms — including imaging techniques Bouman helped develop — to turn sparse data into the now-iconic glowing ring.

Her Friday lecture goes beyond that work. According to the event description provided by Caltech, Bouman will discuss how physics and machine learning are combining to reveal parts of the universe that are difficult or fundamentally impossible to observe directly. The talk will also cover how scientists map the distribution of dark matter by detecting subtle distortions in the shapes of galaxies — a technique known as gravitational lensing.

“Some of the most iconic images in modern science were never captured by a camera in the traditional sense,” Bouman said in the lecture description. “Instead, they were inferred from indirect and incomplete measurements, using a combination of physics, prior knowledge, and computation.”

The Stargazing Lecture Series, organized by Cameron Hummels, Caltech’s director of astrophysics outreach, has been running since 2016. The free monthly events draw the public onto Caltech’s Pasadena campus for 30-minute lectures aimed at a general audience, followed by a Q&A panel with scientists and guided stargazing with telescopes on the athletic fields adjacent to the Cahill Center.

“Providing people with their first opportunity to look through a telescope at the Moon or Saturn or some other astronomical object fills me with deep satisfaction,” Hummels said in an interview published by Caltech Magazine.

“Images of the Hidden Universe,” featuring Katie Bouman, takes place Friday, May 29, at 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to all; no reservations are required. It is held at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1216 East California Boulevard. Parking is free in Caltech lots and garages outside weekday business hours. Those unable to attend in person can watch via YouTube livestream at youtube.com/live/4ZIeAVJLYTw. For more information, call 626-510-4911 or visit outreach.astro.caltech.edu.

On a Friday evening in late May, the telescopes will be pointed at whatever the Pasadena sky offers. But inside the Cahill Center, the view will reach considerably farther — to the edge of a black hole, and into the dark matter that holds the universe together.