Her black hole research confirms Einstein's relativity on a massive scale
What happens when a star has a close encounter with a supermassive black hole? It gives astronomers a chance to put Einstein to the test.
By looking at how a star behaves as it whips around the black hole parked in the center of our galaxy, scientists have confirmed that the object’s intense gravitational field puts the brakes on starlight, causing a noticeable delay in its journey through the cosmos. This measurement is the best way to test a key prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which suggests that light will lose energy as it struggles to move through an extreme gravitational field.
“This kind of experiment is the first direct test of how gravity works