Einstein proven right again! Study of extreme stars confirms theory of general relativity

DECEMBER 14, 2021

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Chalk up another win for the famous theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. A 16-year experiment which tried to challenge Einstein’s theory of general relativity has come to a not-so-surprising conclusion — Einstein was right all along.

What makes that result shocking, however, is the fact that an international team of scientists confirmed the theory using objects in space that Einstein didn’t even know existed at the time of his breakthrough. Specifically, the team studied a pair of extreme stars using seven deep space radio telescopes to examine how gravity affects the fabric of space-time.

These stars,called pulsars, are actually part of a rare double pulsar star system, with one of the stars spinning about 44 times per second and its companion star rotating about three times a second. Study authors say the motion of these two pulsars around each other makes this one of the most precise tests of gravity ever completed.

“A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating compact star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles,” says Dr. Robert Ferdman of the University of East Anglia in arelease.

“They weigh more than our sun but they are only about 15 miles across – so they are incredibly dense objects that produce radio beams that sweep the sky like a lighthouse.”

Despite not knowing of the existence of pulsars in the cosmos or havingdeep space telescopesto measure gravitational forces in space, the study finds Einstein’s 100-year-old theory predicted the team’s observations with near-perfect accuracy (99.99%).