More Confirmation of GR?

[beecee]

http://www.sciencealert.com/stars-orbiting-a-supermassive-black-hole-may-have-finally-confirmed-general-relativity

 

Stars Orbiting a Supermassive Black Hole May Have Finally Confirmed General Relativity: 

 

If you really, really want to scrutinise the limits of Einstein's general theory of relativity, there's a unique testing ground you ought to know about, although it's a little out of the way.

The galactic centre – the heart of the Milky Way, some 26,000 light-years from Earth – hosts a supermassive black hole with a mass 4 million times that of the Sun. Now, for the first time, scientists have accurately recorded the orbits of stars around this giant void, and the results suggest Einstein was right all along.

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the paper: 

http://www.eso.org/public/archives/announcements/pdf/ann17051b.pdf

 

Investigating the Relativistic Motion of the Stars Near the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center.

Abstract: 

The S-star cluster in the Galactic center allows us to study the physics close to a supermassive black hole, including distinctive dynamical tests of general relativity. Our best estimates for the mass of and the distance to Sgr A* using the three stars with the shortest period (S2, S38, and S55/S0-102) and Newtonian models are MBH = (4.15 ± 0.13 ± 0.57) × 106 Me and R0 = 8.19 ± 0.11 ± 0.34 kpc. Additionally, we aim at a new and practical method to investigate the relativistic orbits of stars in the gravitational field near Sgr A* . We use a first-order postNewtonian approximation to calculate the stellar orbits with a broad range of periapse distance rp. We present a method that employs the changes in orbital elements derived from elliptical fits to different sections of the orbit. These changes are correlated with the relativistic parameter defined as ϒ ≡ rs/rp (with rs being the Schwarzschild radius) and can be used to derive ϒ from observational data. For S2 we find a value of ϒ = 0.00088 ± 0.00080, which is consistent, within the uncertainty, with the expected value of ϒ = 0.00065 derived from MBH and the orbit of S2. We argue that the derived quantity is unlikely to be dominated by perturbing influences such as noise on the derived stellar positions, field rotation, and drifts in black hole mass

Edited August 17, 2017 by beecee

[jimmydasaint]

I don't understand what the Abstract says.  Could you please explain this in plain English mate and give us a recap of GR while you're at it. Thanks/

[beecee]

2 hours ago, jimmydasaint said:

I don't understand what the Abstract says.  Could you please explain this in plain English mate and give us a recap of GR while you're at it. Thanks/

As a lay person, I included the paper Abstract simply to elaborate on the article itself, so I would say that it adds validity and reputability to that article, remembering that sometimes "pop science articles" can sometimes be misleading, in their efforts to simplify.

I believe the following would some up the abstract and paper......

Quote

 

Researchers analysed some 20 years of observation data from the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other sources to analyse the movements of three stars in orbit around Sagittarius A*, and the motion of one of these – called S2 – doesn't match up with the predictions of Newtonian gravity.

S2 is a 15-solar-mass star that loops around Sagittarius A* in an elliptical orbit that takes almost 16 years to complete.

Once every orbit it passes extremely close to the supermassive black hole –within about 17 light-hours, which is around 120 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

That intense proximity ends up affecting the trajectory of S2's orbit around Sagittarius A* – introducing a subtle deviation (seen in the image below) on each loop that can't be reconciled with Newtonian physics, but which does match up with Einstein's general relativity.

"Right now, this is basically a consistency test," one of the team, Andreas Eckart from the University of Cologne in Germany told Gizmodo.

"We probed the data with what we expected from relativity, [and saw] very strong indications here that we got the expected answer."

 

In essence, the data simply again reinforced the accuracy of GR, and its correctness within its zone of applicability.

I once was a part of another forum, where at least four "would be's if they could be's" all claimed to different degrees that GR was wrong, and yet all they were proficient in doing was spreading their agenda laden anti Einstein nonsense on public forums and insidiously avoiding proper publication and proper professional peer review.  

Edited August 24, 2017 by beecee