Help Scientists Discover New Black Holes From Your Phone

The Dutch Black Hole Consortium developed the Black Hole Finder app because it turns out humans can still recognize black holes with more accuracy than algorithms can. However, the sheer volume of images that need to be analyzed for the presence or absence of black holes means that researchers on their own would never be able to sift through all the photos themselves. Accessing volunteers from the public is a way to process thousands of images in a shorter amount of time.

The way that Black Hole Finder works is that it will first instruct the user on what to look for when identifying black holes from photos taken by telescopes. Once you learn what to look for, you will move on to identifying black holes, being shown three images and asked to determine whether they represent a genuine black hole or a false one. If you’re unsure, you can skip identification, and all the data you analyze will help train AI to continue in the identification process in the future.

The images for black hole identification are sourced from the BlackGEM telescope array in Chile, where the night sky is systematically recorded to a video feed. The images captured by the camera can be converted to still photographs to search for black holes. This array is specifically used to capture the optical emissions from merging neutron stars and black holes, allowing researchers to identify black holes in our universe using the Black Hole Finder app.

Astronomers are looking for the signals from the creation of black holes that result from the collision of neutron stars. These signals are known as kilonova explosions, emitting visible light that can be seen in images gathered by the telescope array.

There are many false readings of kilonovas caused by light sources not originating from the collision of neutron stars, like signals from light bouncing off of satellites, for instance, so the Black Hole Finder app can help to distinguish genuine from false kilonova readings.

In addition to English, the app can be used in Dutch, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, German, Bengali, and Italian, allowing citizen scientists from much of the world to participate in the black hole identification project. You can find the app on Apple and Google Play, and there’s also a web-based version if you prefer to work from a computer. Your black hole identifications will be used to train an AI system to more effectively identify black holes and more rapidly map them throughout the universe.

Source: Quantum Universe