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An international team of astronomers found that Einstein's theory of relativity acted in the same way on a star system at 4,200 light-years as on a feather and a hammer on Earth.
This means that a feather and a hammer dropped at the same time will fall to the ground at the same speed.
The theory passed the test in 1971 when Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott dropped the two articles on the surface of the moon
Astronomers have now seen the theory of relativity pass the test on a much larger cosmic scale.
The star system in question, called PSR J0337 + 1715, contains an orbiting neutron star in orbit for 1.6 days around a white dwarf star orbiting around a planet. other white dwarf every 327 days
White dwarfs are small but dense stars, almost Earth-sized, mass similar to that of the sun
are much smaller than white dwarves but are incredibly dense and are probably the smallest and densest stars known to science.
Co-author of the Ryan Lynch study, Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, said: "It's a unique star system." This makes it a unique laboratory for to test the theories of Einstein. "
Scientists have studied the gravitational forces of each star, one of the most important, which is two billion times stronger than the Earth , to determine if it had an impact on each of the accelerations of the stars.
If Einstein 's theory was false, the neutron star and the inner white dwarf would each fall to the star. external to different levels.
But in calculating the pulses of the neutron star, astronomers found that the difference in acceleration between the neutron star and the white dwarf was too tiny for to be detected.
The results proved that Einstein had reason one in his theories about gravity.
Nina Gusinskaia, co-author of the study, University of Amsterdam, said that the difference in acceleration did not exceed three parts in a million.
The famous German physicist presented his revolutionary theory of relativity in 1915 [1]. 9659002] Einstein's theory presented gravity not as a force, but as a direct consequence of the curvature of space-time caused by an unequal distribution of mass.
The most extreme example of this curvature is a black hole. light, can escape its gravitational pull.
Hermann Weyl, German mathematician and physicist, said: "Einstein's theory of relativity has advanced our ideas on the structure of the cosmos.
" C & # 39; as if a wall separating us from the Truth had collapsed. "
The PSR J0337 + 1715 study was published this week in the journal Nature under the title" Universality of the Free Fall of the orbital motion of a pulsar in a triple stellar system. "
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