American and Canadian astronomers have presented new confirmation of general relativity. The corresponding study will be published in the journal Science, briefly reported by the Embry-Riddle Aviation University (USA).
Scientists managed to determine the mass of the sixth white dwarf in the distance from the Earth (Stein 2051 B), which turned out to be 1.5 times lighter than the Sun, using the method of gravitational microlensing.
Experts observed the Einstein ring (the effect predicted by a physicist in 1936) - a distortion of the light of a distant star, between which the observer (on Earth) was Stein 2051 B. The ring formation was asymmetric, the effect, according to scientists, was first observed for stars other than the Sun …
In total, from October 2013 to the same month of 2015, eight observations were carried out. The research was carried out at the Hubble telescope.
The work of scientists, in addition to confirming the general theory of relativity, made it possible to find out the mass and composition of Stein 2051 B, check the relationship between the mass and radius of such luminaries, proposed in 1939 by astrophysicist Subramanian Chandrasekhar, and also demonstrated a promising method for determining the masses of distant stars.