Black hole could test relativity

• Autores: Lisa Grossman
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2915, 2013, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • John Antoniadis of the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Bonn, Germany, and colleagues have now put relativity to the test around the most massive neutron star yet discovered. PSR J0348+0432 is 2.01 times the mass of the sun. It orbits a white dwarf--the burnt-out husk of a sun-like star that has reached the end of its life. General relativity predicts that as the pair circle each other, they should lose energy in the form of gravitational waves, and their 2.46-hour orbit should shrink by about 8 millionths of a second every year. And that is exactly what Antoniadis and colleagues saw. That's astonishing, he says. This mathematically elegant theory, general relativity, was devised 100 years ago but still manages to survive every test they perform.