Supermassive black hole and test of general relativity. Diagram of the close approach made by a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, 26, 000 light years from Earth. This star (S2) made this close approach, passing through the extreme gravitational field near the black hole, in May 2018, allowing tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The observations were made with the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Infrared data from the GRAVITY, SINFONI and NACO instruments on the VLT followed the star as it came within 20 billion kilometres of the supermassive black hole, moving at over 25 million kilometres per hour. At this speed (about three percent of the speed of light) the observations (including gravitational redshift of the light from the star) were consistent with General Relativity rather than Newtonian gravity. The rest of the clip shows the orbits of the group of gravitationally tightly-bound stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the galactic centre. | |
Lizenzart: | Lizenzpflichtig |
Credit: | Science Photo Library / spaceengine.org / L. Calcada / GRAVITY Collaboration / ESO |
Modell-Rechte: | nicht erforderlich |
Länge: | 38 Sekunden |
Seitenverhältnis: | 16:9 |
Restrictions: | - |