ICYMI: On April 10, the first official image of a black hole [1] was released for all of us to see. According to the National Science Foundation, the photo — which shows a black hole in the center of the Messier 87 galaxy [2] sitting 55 million light years away — is a result of a massive effort coordinated by researchers all around the world and their cultivation of "five petabytes of data." It's an incredible feat, as many have already pointed out [3], but none of it would have happened without Katie Bouman, a 29-year-old MIT graduate who created an algorithm to make obtaining a photo of the massive void possible.

According to a TEDx Talk that the former computer science student gave back in 2016, trying to photograph a black hole is similar to trying to take a picture of an orange on the surface of the moon — it's difficult and would require a telescope the size of the Earth itself. Since that isn't possible, Bouman sought out an alternative method that involved developing a network of telescopes scattered around the globe [4]. Watch the video above to get a look at how Bouman led the charge on testing out ways to make it possible to see something "that, by definition, is impossible to see."