GENEVA — An effect of general relativity that is barely measurable on Earth has been spotted in full force around a black hole.

Physicists detected the signature of a black hole twisting the fabric of spacetime around it. The discovery offers the best evidence yet of this relativity-driven twisting effect, known as frame dragging, around a black hole where it is most powerful. The research was reported December 16 at the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.

Researchers captured the extreme frame dragging by analyzing X-rays emanating from a disk of star debris swirling around a black hole about 28,000 light-years away in the Milky Way. The data suggest that the disk’s matter is on a wild ride as the spacetime it occupies gets yanked and warped by the spinning black hole.

Albert Einstein’s century-old general theory of relativity describes gravity in terms of massive objects deforming the surrounding spacetime. For example, Earth creates a dent in spacetime much like a bowling ball would on a rubber sheet. The concept of frame dragging is less intuitive: It stipulates that if the ball were spun, it would drag the sheet along with it.

Physicists with the Gravity Probe B project measured Earth-induced frame dragging using gyroscopes inside a satellite (SN: 12/26/15, p. 7). If the rules of relativity had not applied, the axis of each gyroscope’s spin would have pointed in the same direction forever. But the researchers found that the axes deviated by about a hundred-thousandth of a degree per year due to Earth’s rotation. The experiment required extreme sensitivity to capture such a subtle effect.

But frame dragging should be anything but subtle around a black hole, which packs an immense mass within a small volume. While scientists can’t put a satellite into orbit around a black hole, they can study the motion of stuff circling it. Adam Ingram, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, and colleagues zeroed in on H1743-322, a black hole that is stripping matter from an unlucky star. The disk of material orbits on a plane that is not quite perpendicular to the black hole’s axis of spin.

Using data from the XMM-Newton space telescope, the researchers analyzed X-rays emitted by iron ions embedded in the swirling disk of stellar material. These ions emit X-rays at a telltale frequency, but that frequency grows and shrinks slightly depending on the direction the ions are moving in relation to the observer. Ingram and colleagues studied how the frequency of the iron-emitted X-rays fluctuated over time to chart the path of material in the disk.

Based on the pattern of frequency shifts, the researchers concluded that, in addition to orbiting the black hole, the disk is also wobbling: As the black hole spins, it tugs on the surrounding spacetime and drags the disk with it. The disk’s innermost material experiences a frame-dragging effect that’s about 100 trillion times as strong as the effect experienced by the Earth-orbiting gyroscopes, Ingram reported. The axis of a gyroscope in black hole orbit would drift roughly 90 degrees each second.

“This result is very big,” says Eugenio Bottacini, an astrophysicist at Stanford University who attended the presentation where the results were announced. But he wants to see details of the analysis in Ingram’s upcoming paper, which is under review for publication.

In his presentation, Ingram said the research illustrates how scientists can use iron-emitted X-rays as a scanner to view black hole accretion disks from different angles as the material orbits and wobbles. Additional studies could enable scientists to further test Einstein’s seminal theory and better understand the conditions facing matter caught in a black hole’s gravitational clutches.

Science has invented instrumentation beyond most people's comprehension.

They did wait over a decade to see how true this was. It was true.

GENEVA — A dancing duo of cosmic beacons has provided scientists with the most precise measurement, albeit an indirect one, of ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves.

The measurement comes from analyzing the only known pair of gravitationally bound pulsars, dense cores of dead stars that emit intense beams of radio waves with the regularity of a nearly perfect clock. Michael Kramer, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and colleagues precisely tracked the deterioration of the pulsars’ orbits, presumably due to loss of energy in the form of gravitational waves. The rate of orbital wane matches perfectly with the predictions of general relativity, Kramer reported December 16 at the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.

The double pulsar system J0737-3039A, discovered in 2003, is an astrophysicist’s dream. By analyzing the radio beams, researchers can probe the wild things that happen when the small but massive celestial objects circle each other at roughly a million kilometers an hour. Under the rules of general relativity, the pulsars should plow through spacetime and generate ripples that carry away energy, leading the pulsars to gradually fall toward each other.

Using observations from several telescopes over more than a decade, Kramer and his team determined that the pulsars are approaching each other by 7.152 millimeters a day, give or take a micrometer. That’s exactly what theory predicts based on the mass and acceleration of the pulsars.

Though gravitational waves have yet to be detected by observatories on Earth (SN: 10/17/15, p. 24), Kramer’s work adds to the haul of evidence supporting the waves’ existence. The 1993 Nobel Prize went to a pair of physicists who used a binary system with one pulsar to calculate gravitational wave emission.

For those who think Einstein's Theory of Relativity doesn't work ... it does.

Duh! It's fun.

Education and intelligence are relative terms. They don't mean much in many circumstances. One person, due to circumstances, may not have finished college but may be the PERFECT match for someone who spent many years in college.

An intelligent person could be dyslexic or have some other minor disability that hindered education.

Also, people grow with time. Maturity evens out and levels the field.

If someone is interesting, learn who they are. Their qualities may have nothing to do with formal education.

There's something amiss in the works.

Maybe, ... just maybe, someday we will learn the truth.

Comets are cool!

A whole pig
Half a goat
pies
sweet potatoes
smoked cheesy scalloped potatoes
stuffed jalapenos
various appetizers
something green (maybe)

The explanation does not pass the "smell" test!

If a terrorist gave a warning to the schools so all the children would get a day off, it would probably be because the terrorist was planning to hit the malls while the cops were checking out the schools.

If a terrorist gave a warning to the schools so all the children would get a day off, it would probably be because the terrorist was planning to hit the malls while the cops were checking out the schools.

Dude, your profile is a little light. What little you say is more "guy stuff" than topics that may interest a woman. Instead of "motoring" try "motoring with my lady for tea and crumpets" or something to catch their interest. Expand with the intent to create interest.

Good luck with your search.

Welcome!

Just be yourself. Anything else won't work.

Got up to eighty here today!

Warning!!!!

Some of the techniques discussed here are fine. Disrespecting the terrorist filth is a good idea.

HOWEVER!

Do not post on a Facebook page or other website in a way that allows them to know who you are or, in any way, have access to you. You cannot find them by the information they post on the web. Depending upon how you post, they could find you.

Mingle2

This 'style' of underground has been around for years. It offers great energy efficiency and can be made larger by going modular with the pods.

It has very little maintenance and stays a more or less constant temperature most of the year. You can actually grow crops on the roof.

It is a good idea that never really caught on.

Think of all the trees that had to die for that wasted paper!!!!!