NSF-backed Open Science Pool powers AI breakthrough on Milky Way’s black hole spin

An international team of astronomers has leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) and millions of synthetic simulations to reveal that the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is spinning at nearly its maximum speed.

This breakthrough was powered by the NSF-funded Open Science Pool, operated by PATh, which aggregates computing resources from over 80 institutions across the United States. The simulations were generated using the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC), a collaboration between the Morgridge Institute for Research and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"An international team of astronomers has trained a neural network with millions of synthetic simulations and artificial intelligence (AI) to tease out new cosmic curiosities about black holes, revealing the one at the center of our Milky Way is spinning at nearly top speed," the researchers reported.

Lead researcher Michael Janssen of Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, commented on the findings: "That we are defying the prevailing theory is of course exciting. However, I see our AI and machine learning approach primarily as a first step."

This discovery challenges existing astrophysical models and demonstrates the power of combining AI with high-throughput computing to explore complex cosmic phenomena. The Open Science Pool's distributed computing capacity was critical in enabling the large-scale simulations necessary for this research.

The study marks a significant advancement in understanding black hole dynamics and highlights the growing role of AI and collaborative computing infrastructures in astronomy.

An international team of astronomers used AI trained on millions of synthetic simulations via the NSF-backed Open Science Pool to discover the Milky Way’s central black hole spins near top speed, challenging prevailing theories and marking a breakthrough in cosmic research.