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Posted on: July 26, 2018 8:00 am Updated: Jul 26, 2018 9:48
NEW YORK (AP) – More than a century after Albert Einstein proposed it, his theory of general relativity passed another test
With giant telescopes pointed at the center of our galaxy, a team of European researchers observed a fast-moving star that approached a monstrous black hole . They saw that the black hole was distorting the light waves of the star in a manner that corresponds to Einstein's theory
The result was reported Thursday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics [19659003] Einstein's theory says that the fabric of the universe is not just the space, but a more complex entity called space-time, which is distorted by the presence of space. heavy objects.
Black holes offer a good opportunity to test this idea. The one in the heart of the Milky Way is 4 million times more massive than our sun.
The new study "looks like beating a dead horse," said Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist from Ohio State University. was not part of the research team led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany.
"Like all the physicists of the world, I would have liked to see a crack in Einstein's relativity." Sutter said. "But he surpassed us."
Scientists know that theory still does not explain everything about the universe. So, they continue to test it again and again. Until now, no one has been able to reverse it.
Although the effects of general relativity have already been observed, it was the first detection made by observing the movement of a star near a supermassive black hole
. Said Clifford Will, a physicist from the University of Florida who did not participate in the research.
Will hope that his colleagues will be able to discover stars even closer to the black hole, where the effects of relativity would be stronger.
This discovery "is really the episode of openness," he said. "The future, I think, is going to be very exciting."
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Follow Emiliano Rodriguez Mega on Twitter: @mapache_rm
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Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from Howard Hughes Medical Institute Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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