STEP 1 Each of the brighter stars on the night sky above is a scientific concept – either a larger-than-life breakthrough, such as generative AI and nuclear fusion, or smaller, science-class homework topics such as gravity and the human skeleton.
STEP 2 Notice how each star is connected to many others, forming over a hundred constellations. These links show how people, when searching for one concept, often end up asking questions about others topics as well.
STEP 3 Let's take a look at one of these bright stars in order to better understand how this slice of the sky was mapped. This star represents the topic "black hole".
STEP 4 Considering decades of Google Search data, it was in April 2019 that the interest for black holes was at its highest. That's when a team of researchers managed to capture the first picture of such a celestial body. Naturally, people flocked to Google with many questions about it.
STEP 5 Google Search data also allows us to find something even more interesting: what did people search for after getting their first round of questions answered?
Many of them were still curious about the newest discovery. For example, users asked many questions about Messier 87, the galaxy where the black hole in the picture was located.
STEP 6 This is why there's a link between black hole and Messier 87. When the first was trending, people who searched about it were also curious about the latter.
STEP 7 The same happened for the other topics around black hole, such as NASA, gravitational waves and telescopes.
STEP 8 And, by charting all those connections, a constellation was built.
