Relativity experiment measures star's mass

[Merc14]

Einstein Relativity Experiment Used to Measure a Star's Mass

By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | June 7, 2017 11:15am ET

The mass of Stein 2051 B, a white dwarf star located about 18 light-years from Earth, has been a subject of some controversy for over a century. Now, a group of astronomers has finally made a precise measurement of the star's mass and settled a 100-year-old debate, using a cosmic phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein. 

Article continues:  http://www.space.com/37113-einstein-relativity-experiment-measures-star-mass.html

Includes good video explaining gravity lensing

[Opus Magnus]

I like the part of about gravitational lensing.  I've thought about these things a lot on my own.. without knowing.  What I mean is I noticed years ago, looking through the branches of trees, I thought I saw them making a lense.  Like a magnification.  And other things, when arranged like that, it sounds like gravitational lensing, but with much smaller objects.  I told my friends about this, because it felt like some great mystery, because we were playing disc golf in the woods at the time, but they just scoffed and brushed me off.

It intrigues me with einstein, and is a grudge I still hold to this day from 5th grade.  We had a substitute teacher, the wife of a Judge.  I remember when we were going over light in science class, and I she said it's energy.  But, I just knew it couldn't just be energy, because our flesh stops it, and then darkness happens, and energy moves through objects.  So I knew it seemed it must be matter, and I told the teacher and she scolded me and everything.  Then years later, after 5th grade I learn einstein;'s theory about light particulates.  So anyway, that happened multiple times, and I just hate the teachers sometimes, because I've been proven right on my own too many times to trust them about these things.

Also, like gravitational lensing, is how shadows group together, like they fly at each other when held close together but not too far apart.  There was a video on this site a year or 2 ago about that, that scientists were talking about that phenomenon now, but they didn't know much about it, or gave an unsatisfactory answer to my own senses.  But, they're acknowledging it now in the mainstream....

Anyway, as with the gravitational lensing, many years ago in a chat room i had a brief conversation with some guy and he told me something interesting.  He had an idea, he was telling me there are size travelers, like time travelers if they existed.  But I guess it was in reference to something like faeries.   Anyway, what comes to mind with gravitational lensing, how I've seen in in objects with much less gravity.  It's like how objects when you're close appear big, and small far away, but the same size.  In a multidimensional universe, if the size could travel in a dimension of size to change like that and influence gravity on a different scale relating that dimension to ours.  Not sure how to say it well, but that's just just of it, an hypothesis.

[Merc14]

13 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

I like the part of about gravitational lensing.  I've thought about these things a lot on my own.. without knowing.  What I mean is I noticed years ago, looking through the branches of trees, I thought I saw them making a lense.  Like a magnification.  And other things, when arranged like that, it sounds like gravitational lensing, but with much smaller objects.  I told my friends about this, because it felt like some great mystery, because we were playing disc golf in the woods at the time, but they just scoffed and brushed me off.

Amazing that you were thinking in that type of framework at such an early age!  That said, the effect you noticed was not gravitational lensing as gravitational lensing requires a massive object to create any measurable change in perceived position.  In this case it took an object .68 the size of the sun to change the perceived location of the background star 2 millarcseconds, something so small your eye couldn't possibly see it.   Not sure what you were seeing but I'd guess it was many little branches, too small and distant for your eyes to see at night, blurring the star you were staring at and thereby making it appear larger but that is just a guess on my part.

13 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

It intrigues me with einstein, and is a grudge I still hold to this day from 5th grade.  We had a substitute teacher, the wife of a Judge.  I remember when we were going over light in science class, and I she said it's energy.  But, I just knew it couldn't just be energy, because our flesh stops it, and then darkness happens, and energy moves through objects.  So I knew it seemed it must be matter, and I told the teacher and she scolded me and everything.  Then years later, after 5th grade I learn einstein;'s theory about light particulates.  So anyway, that happened multiple times, and I just hate the teachers sometimes, because I've been proven right on my own too many times to trust them about these things.

Again, very astute reasoning that out at such an early age.  Your teacher should've been more curious as your question was a valid one. 

 

 

[keithisco]

Quote

 

Of course... it is equally explained by refraction around the white dwarf. There is a very long thread devoted to this topic from some years ago.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

3 hours ago, keithisco said:

Of course... it is equally explained by refraction around the white dwarf.

Refraction can easily be discounted. If the light from the distant object had been refracted rather than bent by gravitational lensing it would show tell-tale emission lines from the white dwarfs atmosphere in it's spectra.

[Noxasa]

I had no idea Gravitational Microlensing has never been observed between two stars before, but only between galaxies.  Learn something new everyday.  :-)