PARIS - A consortium of astronomers said Thursday they had for the first time confirmed a prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity by observing the gravitational effects of a supermassive black hole on a star zipping by it. One of the greatest minds of humankind predicted that the light of a star would not slow down, but would rather lose some of its energy in powerful gravitational fields such as those created by supermassive black holes; its wavelengths grow longer, which would make a star look redder. An international group led by Reinhard Genzel at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) was able to test Albert Einstein’s 100-year-old general relativity theory with a supermassive black hole for first time, proving the latter's theory involving the behavior of stars around black holes. Sagittarius A* is thought to be the location of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where Earth and our Solar System lives, and in a new series of observations using Chile’s Very Large Telescope scientists have finally observed the phenomenon in action. Astronomers have observed the “red shift” effect monitoring the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, which is 4 million times heavier than the sun and is located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, some 26,000 light years away from Earth. With an orbit of 16 years, they knew it would return close to the black hole in 2018.Over 20 years, the accuracy of their instruments has improved and so in May 2018, they were able to take extremely precise measurements in conjunction with scientists from around the world.
Astronomers say they have observed Albert Einstein's theory of gravitational redshift for the first time while observing a star known as S2 interact with a supermassive black hole using the Very Large Telescope (VLT).