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One of Albert Einstein's main predictions has passed a rigorous observation test. Thanks to ESO's Very Large Telescope, researchers were able to follow a star traversing the extreme gravitational field near a supermassive black hole and confirmed that the star behaved as expected by the general theory from the relativity of Einstein
of relativity in 1915 and he predicted that light from a star would be extended to longer wavelengths due to the extreme gravitational field of a black hole. As a result, the light will go to the red end of the spectrum. This effect is known as gravitational redshift. Until now, there has been no precise test of this theory on astronomical scales.
"It was the first time that we could directly test Einstein's theory of general relativity near a supermassive black hole." Frank Eisenhauer, astronomer at the Max Institute Planck said in a statement
To test the idea, the researchers monitored the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. The black hole is 26,000 light-years from Earth and is surrounded by a small group of stars orbiting around it at high speed. This extreme environment is a great place to explore gravitational physics as well as to test Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Using telescopes at the Southern European Observatory of Chile, researchers specifically observed the motion of a star near the supermassive black hole. 20 years old. The star, called S2, passed very close to the black hole in May 2018. The star was within 20 billion kilometers of the black hole at its nearest point and has moved at a speed of 25 million kilometers per hour – almost three percent of the speed of light.
The event provided extremely accurate measurements that astronomers needed to test Einstein's theory. The new measurements have clearly revealed the effects predicted by the famous theory
"This is the second time that we observe the narrow passage of S2 around the black hole in our galactic center.But this time, thanks to improved instrumentation, we were able to observe the star with unprecedented resolution, "said Reinhard Genzel, principal investigator of the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics." We have been preparing intensely for this event for several years we wanted to make the most of this unique opportunity to observe general relativistic effects. "
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