Center for Astrophysics @ SXSW 2025

Do Wormholes Exist‽

Astronomers Looking Down: A Sustainable Earth Incubator

Tuesday, March 11, 2025 from 4:00 - 5:00 PM, CT in Salon B of the Hilton Austin Downtown

Come visit our session: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP1145780

Come to our talk to find out how we are using our special skills to tackle urgent climate and environmental challenges.

We are astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics who utilize AI to answer pressing questions in astronomy.

Questions like: Do wormholes exist?

The Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) is a new mission that will create a virtual telescope larger than our planet. This telescope will isolate photons of light that have orbited a black hole before escaping, bringing us to a glimpse of spacetime at the edge of the universe.

A wormhole is a tunnel that connects two different points in space and time, or even two different universes.
Image Credit: Kiyoshi Takahase Segundo

BHEX will explore an environment where the known laws of physics are strained to their breaking point. We don't know what we'll see! At the hearts of galaxies may be wormholes instead of black holes, connecting two different points in space and time. If wormholes do exist, BHEX will peer through them, taking us to another point in the spacetime of our universe or even glimpsing another one entirely.

BHEX will extend the Event Horizon Telescope into space, delivering the sharpest images in history and bringing us to the edge of a black hole.
Image Credit: Joseph Farah (CfA/UCSB).

BHEX is a computational telescope, relying on lasers to downlink petabytes of data from the satellite before ultimately making its images in a computer. Creating BHEX over the next few years requires more than just conventional engineering - we must push to unimaginable data rates and sharpen the algorithms that define how BHEX "sees" the universe.

BHEX will make images of the razor thin “photon ring” that is predicted to exist in black hole images. If we are instead looking at wormholes, we will instead see a series of sharp, deformed rings. These rings are produced from light on both sides of the wormhole! These images show both possibilities using simulated images of glowing material near each type of object.
Credit: arXiv:2002.09226.

AstroAI will help to develop ML and AI algorithms to quickly and efficiently process the large amounts of data that the BHEX will produce. In addition, ML and AI can be used to help enhance simulations that will help scientists to interpret results from the BHEX.

Learn More:
BHEX: https://www.blackholeexplorer.org/
BHEX Mission Trailer: https://www.youtub>e.com/watch?v=lPTg0QE5PHI
The Photon Ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i65CYm6Sak