These images are incredible – but also difficult to interpret. So, to figure out what we're looking at, scientists turn to simulations. They build a bunch of virtual characteristics, and figure out which of them most resemble the observational data. This technique has been used a lot with the EHT images, but now it's been kicked up a notch.An artist's impression of a neural network that connects simulated black holes (right) to real observations (left). ()A team led by astronomer Michael Janssen of Radboud University in the Netherlands and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany used high-throughput computing to develop millions of simulated black holes., The colossal black hole lurking at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning almost as fast as its maximum rotation rate. That's just one thing astrophysicists have discovered after developing and applying a new method to tease apart the secrets still hidden in supermassive black hole observations collected by the Event Horizon Telescope , As future telescopes come online and imaging techniques improve, the study of M87’s black hole will continue to push the boundaries of our understanding. In fact, the black hole may soon become a cosmic laboratory for testing the most extreme theories of physics—gravitational waves, dark matter, and even quantum mechanics..