A star has just whizzed by our galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole, proving Einstein's Relativity

Haven't seen any threads about this in this part of ATS, so I thought I'd bring this to your attention:

ESO's Very Large Telescope was used to observe a star (dubbed S2) pass very close to our galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole. In fact, it passed so close that the black hole's extremely powerful gravitational field caused the star to redshift - just as Einstein predicted in his theory of General Relativity.

www.eso.org...

Artist's impression of the star's close approach


At the closest point this star was at a distance of less than 20 billion kilometres from the black hole (about four times the distance from the Sun to Neptune) and moving at a speed in excess of 25 million kilometres per hour — almost three percent of the speed of light.

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.


www.youtube.com...

S2 is just one of dozens of stars that are orbiting our Supermassive Black Hole in close proximity, allowing us to study the black hole itself:


www.youtube.com...

That close approach would have also made the star's local time to slow down due to gravitational time dilation. Remember the movie Interstellar, and how the team's brief time spent on a planet near a black hole translated into decades for the rest of the universe? Relativity and its effects re a fascinating topic!

a reply to: wildespace

S&F

I believe the future holds great things if we can continue to study things of this nature.
The universe holds many mysteries and we haven't even begun to scratch the the metaphorical paint-chips.

Could anyone imagine the time displacement effect being next to a black hole? The amount of time that would pass in a day would be immense. A estimated 7-8 years per hour and in 24 hours = 168 years give or take. If anyone would want to do some real time travel, sit on the edge of an black hole and centuries will go by in a few weeks time.

I dunno how to float this without someone tossing Hair Guy at me.

How sure are they it was a star? What could the (however slim) chances be it was a spacecraft doing a helluva speed, and it had the relative mass of a star? I read that as one approaches lightspeed, the mass of whatever they are flying in increases with the speed. Since I have NO math ability, and my frame of reference is Star Trek- could a ship doing warp speed give off the same readings if it were in a relativistic bubble?

Look- I even have reference material!

futurism.com...

Just my

This is ancient history. Einstein wasn't even born when this happened. We just didn't know about it until we saw it.

originally posted by: wildespace

I would love to see more videos like that!
Apparently it took 20 years of images to make that 4 second segment in that video.

This time-lapse video from the NACO instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile shows stars orbiting the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of the Milky Way over a period of nearly 20 years.

ESO.org

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
This is ancient history. Einstein wasn't even born when this happened. We just didn't know about it until we saw it.

It depends what you mean by "this". The star passed the black hole many thousand years ago.

The LIGHT reached their measuring devices here in the solar system just recently.

2 different events.

originally posted by: wylekat
I dunno how to float this without someone tossing Hair Guy at me.

How sure are they it was a star? What could the (however slim) chances be it was a spacecraft doing a helluva speed, and it had the relative mass of a star? I read that as one approaches lightspeed, the mass of whatever they are flying in increases with the speed.

S2 is estimated to have the mass of around 10 to 15 Suns. Way too massive to be anything other than a star. Especially the fact that we're seeing it from 26,500 light years away.

Increasing relativistic mass due to fast velocity doesn't mean an object could start thermonuclear fusion and glow like a star.

originally posted by: 3n19m470

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
This is ancient history. Einstein wasn't even born when this happened. We just didn't know about it until we saw it.

It depends what you mean by "this". The star passed the black hole many thousand years ago.

The LIGHT reached their measuring devices here in the solar system just recently.

2 different events.

Exactly. So the thread title is a bit wrong. It didn't JUST happen. It happened a long time ago. We just didn't see it happen until just now.

a reply to: wildespace

Increasing relativistic mass due to fast velocity doesn't mean an object could start thermonuclear fusion and glow like a star.

I ask this honestly- but who here knows what happens when a ship does warp whatever, and the bubble is doing whatever weirdness interacting with space? I sure don't. I did find it interesting that the 'mass' is described as energy in the article.

"however, to understand why this phenomenon occurs, we mustn’t think of the object’s mass increasing. Instead, we should think of its energy."

The actual ship might not go thermonuclear, but the whatever they use to propel it and shield it from becoming a charred lump just might.

Like I said- I'm guessing about this, since my UFO is in the shop.

Does this make the star trek dating system invalid depending ones location?

Star date?

originally posted by: BrianFlanders

originally posted by: 3n19m470

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
This is ancient history. Einstein wasn't even born when this happened. We just didn't know about it until we saw it.

It depends what you mean by "this". The star passed the black hole many thousand years ago.

The LIGHT reached their measuring devices here in the solar system just recently.

2 different events.

Exactly. So the thread title is a bit wrong. It didn't JUST happen. It happened a long time ago. We just didn't see it happen until just now.

Then an awful lot of astronomy headlines would be a bit wrong. Of course astronomers (and people into astronomy) are aware that everything we see that far in space happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. It's just a matter of convenience to talk about what we see as happening "now", just as we talk about the Sun rising or setting.

Don't be pedantic. :-p

originally posted by: wylekat
a reply to: wildespace

Increasing relativistic mass due to fast velocity doesn't mean an object could start thermonuclear fusion and glow like a star.

I ask this honestly- but who here knows what happens when a ship does warp whatever, and the bubble is doing whatever weirdness interacting with space? I sure don't. I did find it interesting that the 'mass' is described as energy in the article.

"however, to understand why this phenomenon occurs, we mustn’t think of the object’s mass increasing. Instead, we should think of its energy."

The actual ship might not go thermonuclear, but the whatever they use to propel it and shield it from becoming a charred lump just might.

Like I said- I'm guessing about this, since my UFO is in the shop.

A warp bubble isn't supposed to interact with space, that's the whole point. But warp bubble are for faster-than-light travel, so it's a different case to this particular star.

The energy gained with very fast velocities is kinetic energy, different from rest mass. physics.stackexchange.com...

a reply to: wildespace

The more we find out about space, earth and quantum the more I believe Electrical universe combined with hollow earth theory is more accurate than current models.

It seems Tesla and even China and chi qong and Tai Chi are becoming more and more plausible. Electricity, water and magnetism I must know more!

a reply to: randomthoughts12

Electricity, water and magnetism I must know more!

Electricity and water are kinda shocking, but magnetism is attractive to me.

a reply to: randomthoughts12

Hollow earth theory.

I think mother earth may just be toats preggers mother earth.

That would bring together all the theories of another world inside the earth.

It would maybe mean those recent boys in the cave were in thigh land not thiland.

Wow, posts got totally random and off-topic suddenly!

(And this confirmation of Einstein's Relativity and the existence of a supermassive black hole goes completely against the so called "Electric Universe theory".

a reply to: wildespace

Sounds like a situation where energy is available to harvest.

Setting two massive sets of thought against each other.

Maybe the stuff batteries are made from.

It is all relative according to einstien.

Lies!

This is all sophisticated anti-Flat Earth propaganda.

originally posted by: WarPig1939
Could anyone imagine the time displacement effect being next to a black hole? The amount of time that would pass in a day would be immense. A estimated 7-8 years per hour and in 24 hours = 168 years give or take. If anyone would want to do some real time travel, sit on the edge of an black hole and centuries will go by in a few weeks time.

Does anyone know if it’s possible to orbit a black hole close enough to experience any significant time dilation affects without being torn to bits?