For First Time, Einstein’s Relativity Used to Weigh a StarScientists employ ‘gravitation
For First Time, Einstein’s Relativity Used to Weigh a StarScientists employ ‘gravitational lensing’ to measure the mass of a white dwarfBy Calla CofieldThe mass of Stein 2051 B, a white dwarf star located about 18 light-years from Earth, has been a subject of some controversy for over a century. Now, a group of astronomers has finally made a precise measurement of the star’s mass and settled a 100-year-old debate, using a cosmic phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein. The researchers calculated the star’s mass using carefully timed observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope, which studied Stein 2051 B when it eclipsed another, more distant star, as seen from Earth. During this transit, the background star appeared to change its position in the sky, moving ever so slightly to the side, even though its actual position on the sky had not changed at all. Continue Reading -- source link
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