A
group of astronomers in Germany and the Czech Republic observing three
stars in a cluster near the supermassive black hole at the centre of our
Milky Way galaxy has confirmed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity
once again.
By tracking how the stars moved around the
humongous black hole, slight deviations were observed in one of the
stars' orbits that indicated relativistic effects. General relativity
states that massive objects bend the space around
them, causing other objects to deviate from their original paths. If the
observations are confirmed by the scientific community, then this shows
that general relativity would apply even under extreme conditions -
such as in gravity fields produced by a galaxy's black hole (which in
this case contains approximately the mass of 4 million suns).
Unlike
typical observations, the stars in this case are so close to the black
hole that they move at around 1 to 2 percent the speed of light. Pass
observations such as examinations of the planet Mercury's orbit in the
19th century provided evidence to support Einstein's theory of general
relativity, however the sun's gravity in these earlier observations
pales in comparison to the power of a supermassive black hole.
Read more about this fascinating story at: https://www.space.com/37745-einstein-relativity-tested-by-star-black-hole.html
Photo: Orbits of three stars at centre of Milky Way via ESO/M. Parsa/L. Calçada
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Friday, August 11, 2017
EINSTEIN'S GENERAL RELATIVITY TESTED BY GIANT STAR AND BLACK HOLE
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