United We Stand

editorial United we stand The stunning picture of a black hole shadow that was released by the Event Horizon Telescope highlights the power of collaborative projects, as no single person, telescope or nation could have captured such an image. he first image of a black hole was got due credit for her work and misguidedly work for them? Yes, is the answer. There are released to great fanfare by the piled it all on Bouman, with some news working groups and sub-working groups in TEvent Horizon Telescope (EHT) outlets going so far as to call her “the woman which one can demonstrate leadership and collaboration on 10 April 2019 at six behind the first black hole image”; Bouman introduce fresh ideas for debate. coordinated press conferences around the has always said that it was a team effort on The first major results on the M87 world. Indeed, the image of a bright blurry the part of 200-plus people. On the other, black hole are rightly credited to the ring went viral and launched a thousand in a most farcical way, internet trolls have EHT collaboration as a whole. Given memes, many of them doughnut related. tried to discredit her, claiming instead that the redundancies built into the system, Capturing the black hole shadow — a result fellow team member, Andrew Chael, did all where separate teams analyse the same of the gravitational bending of light and the work. (He has vigorously set the record data independently to ensure unbiased capture of all photons within the event straight on Twitter.) and reliable results, how can any one horizon of the black hole in Messier 87 — The media circus exposes several issues. individual stand out? It is possible for team was the culmination of decades of research Firstly, sexism is rife, but let us fight this members to write their own papers as first involving hundreds of people. ugly facet of the internet another day. authors, explains Heino Falcke, chair of the But as with all ambitious projects, not Another problem is that the public likes EHT Science Council. These papers can everything has always gone smoothly. For to have a ‘face’ rather than the featureless describe specific methods or observations a start, it wasn’t clear that the astronomers anonymity of a collaboration. That outdated of other sources. would succeed at imaging the event ‘lone genius’ trope misses the whole So far, the EHT observations are horizon of a black hole, effectively seeing point of a collaboration and the nature of consistent with synthetic data from the unseeable, as project director Shep modern research, particularly in particle general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic Doeleman puts it. In 2007, a prototype array physics, where collaborations can exceed simulations for a Kerr black hole of mass 6.5 involving three observatories provided hope. 5,000 members. For example, when the billion solar masses, rotating in a clockwise Then there were the technical challenges spokespersons of the Atlas and CMS teams direction. The brightness of the southern in expanding the network, such as linking were awarded a share of the Breakthrough ring comes from the relativistic beaming eight radio observatories that were built as Prize for the Higgs boson detection in 2012, of the emission that is moving towards the independent entities to act as one very long Fabiola Gianotti (then Atlas spokesperson, observer. Of course, these data do not rule baseline interferometry array the size of the now Director General of CERN) insisted: out certain alternative theories of gravity. planet. In terms of bandwidth, sensitivity “This is not a prize for me, it’s a prize for The first wave of analysis has not revealed and resolution, the EHT collaboration the collaboration, and it recognizes the any unexpected features, but these are early couldn’t be sure their network was good hard experimental work everyone involved days. Future time-dependent measurements enough until it was good enough. And in has done over the years.” Similarly, her will address the stability, shape and depth April 2017, it was definitely good enough counterpart at CMS, Joe Incandela, praised of the shadow (thought to be constant on on four separate days. However, there would the whole team. Both, along with other human timescales; Astrophys. J. Lett. 875, L1 be more waiting to come as the hard drives CERN awardees, have donated their prize (2019)). Longer-scale monitoring could yet had to be carried to the two data centres to money to help young researchers and show changes in the jet launching region, combine all the collected data, and those science education. which may occur on a timescale of a year. from the South Pole Telescope had to wait With the advent of mega telescopes What is clear is that more show-stopping out the winter. and space missions, astronomers have also results, including images of the black hole Those issues can be labelled ‘known had to adopt large collaborations. We can at the centre of our own Galaxy, will be unknowns’. With enough determination and learn from the particle physics community, coming. Hopefully, all of us — members of resourcing, it was just a matter of time. That where the collective spirit is so deeply the public, of governments and of the media so many funding agencies kept faith in the ingrained that few try to gain personal — will understand that discoveries like these project is very heartening. What is really credit (those who do are viewed with are only possible through the collective surprising, in an ‘unknown unknown’ kind suspicion or even disdain). However, when effort of many brilliant and hard-working of way, is the fallout since the black hole it comes to the careers of young scientists, people. To single out one person not only image went viral. Somehow, Katie Bouman, how do collaborations promote the most diminishes the rest, it shifts the spotlight a member of the imaging team within the deserving? When everyone has a thousand away from what we should be celebrating. ❐ EHT, was singled out for her contribution papers to their name, how do we unpick to the now famous image. On one side the a person’s actual contributions when they Published online: 9 May 2019 media had wanted to ensure that a woman are applying for a job, say? Does the system https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0787-y NATURE ASTRONOMY | VOL 3 | MAY 2019 | 365 | www.nature.com/natureastronomy 365.

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