Scientists confirm Einstein's century-old prediction about black holes
19 May 2024 09:38
In 1915, Albert Einstein predicted the behavior of matter as it approaches a black hole. Scientists have now observed a phenomenon for the first time that confirms the assumptions of the famous physicist from over a century ago.
Einstein was right about black holes. According to Interesting Engineering, scientists have observed a specific area around black holes known as the dive zone. Einstein predicted its existence in his general theory of relativity.
Scientists' observations indicate that in the dive zone, matter stops orbiting the black hole. Instead, it falls straight into it at the speed of light. The study of dive zones may provide new information about the fundamental nature of spacetime.
Einstein predicted it
The behavior of matter predicted by Einstein in 1915 as it approaches a black hole was so far just a forecast that could not be confirmed. However, NASA's NuSTAR and NICER telescopes have allowed observations that confirm dive zones actually exist.
A team of scientists led by the Department of Physics at Oxford discovered the zone exerts some of the strongest gravitational forces observed in the galaxy. The study focused on smaller black holes that are relatively close to Earth. Data collected from the NuSTAR and NICER telescopes were used for this study.
River and waterfall
"This is the first look at how plasma, peeled from the outer edge of a star, undergoes its final fall into the centre of a black hole, a process happening in a system around ten thousand light years away," says Dr. Andrew Mummery from Oxford University, who led the research.
"What is really exciting is that there are many black holes in the galaxy, and we now have a powerful new technique for using them to study the strongest known gravitational fields," he adds.
Mummery emphasized the importance of the research findings. He compared them to a river and a waterfall. "Think of it like a river turning into a waterfall – hitherto, we have been looking at the river. This is our first sight of the waterfall" he concluded.
