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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 02 2018, @01:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-way-spaghettification dept.

Observations made with ESO's Very Large Telescope have for the first time revealed the effects predicted by Einstein's general relativity on the motion of a star passing through the extreme gravitational field near the supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. This long-sought result represents the climax of a 26-year-long observation campaign using ESO's telescopes in Chile.

[...] The new measurements clearly reveal an effect called gravitational redshift. Light from the star is stretched to longer wavelengths by the very strong gravitational field of the black hole. And the change in the wavelength of light from S2 agrees precisely with that predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. This is the first time that this deviation from the predictions of the simpler Newtonian theory of gravity has been observed in the motion of a star around a supermassive black hole.


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:39PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:39PM (#716443) Journal

    but now that Einstein has been shown to (pardon the word) trump Newton,

    Einstein was shown to trump Newton roughly a century ago. This is just another observed variant of a predicted phenomenon.

    will anyone speculate on the cumulative effect of gravity from barionic/light&dark matter?

    Speculate? Standard cosmological models already take into account relativistic effects.

    Would it no effect the red-shift between us and the end of the observable universe?
    Wouldn't/Couldn't that 'do something' to the hubble variable we call constant??

    See above. I think you misread the summary. This is the first time this effect has been observed clearly around a supermassive black hole. It's well-known that gravitational relativistic effects are present elsewhere in the universe, and they've been observed empirically for decades [wikipedia.org]. Hence, most cosmological models of the universe already build this stuff in.

    but no, nvm. go on, argue about words defined in dictionaries.

    Discursive discussion is often interesting. Certainly more interesting than someone asking questions rather than looking up "Gravitational Redshift" (or, ya know, clicking on the link to it in the summary!) before asking ignorant questions. (Yes, that's snarky. But I'm replying to someone who is being a bit of a jerk.)

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