A star orbiting the Milky Way’s giant black hole confirms Einstein was right

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Sun Jan 03, 2021 6:30 pm

: A star's rosette-shaped path around a black hole confirms Einstein's theory of gravity. Rather than tracing out a single ellipse (red), its orbit rotates over time (blue, rotation exaggerated in this illustration for emphasis). L. CALÇADA/ESO.

Emily Conover of Science News wrote:

The first sign that Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity was correct has made a repeat appearance, this time near a supermassive black hole.

In 1915, Einstein realized that his newly formulated general theory of relativity explained a weird quirk in the orbit of Mercury. Now, that same effect has been found in a star’s orbit of the enormous black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, researchers with the GRAVITY collaboration report April 16 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The star, called S2, is part of a stellar entourage that surrounds the Milky Way’s central black hole. For decades, researchers have tracked S2’s elliptical motion around the black hole...

Now, they’ve determined that the ellipse rotates over time, what’s known as Schwarzschild precession...

Ann

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Sun Jan 03, 2021 7:43 pm

viewtopic.php?t=40464

Starship Asterisk*

A star orbiting the Milky Way’s giant black hole confirms Einstein was right

A star orbiting the Milky Way’s giant black hole confirms Einstein was right

Re: A star orbiting the Milky Way’s giant black hole confirms Einstein was right