Remember way back when, when Albert Einstein had predicted that light could be bent by sufficiently massive objects, and observed in conditions such as … a solar eclipse? And a solar eclipse was scheduled to occur a century ago?
Dr. Tony Phillips has the story on Spaceweather.com:
On May 29, 1919, the Moon slid in front of the sun and forever altered our understanding of spacetime. It was “Einstein’s Eclipse.” Using the newly-developed theory of relativity, the young German physicist predicted that the sun’s gravity should bend starlight–an effect which could be seen only during a total eclipse. Some of the greatest astronomers of the age rushed to check his prediction.
And the cherry on top:
More than 100 years later, Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Institute of Physics in Opava) and Miloslav Druckmüller (Brno University of Technology) have just released a stunning restoration of the photo that proved Einstein right:
The stars that were in the position predicted by relativity are down in the lower right, although frankly I have no idea which ones – I suppose any of them prove the point, assuming they have deviated from the position predicted by previous theories by the expected amount.
But I just like the pic. That prominence on the upper right is fantastic.
