Astronomers observe star – Astronomers have spotted a star’s orbit spinning around a black hole — a spectacular dance in the universe that serves as one of the very few direct confirmations of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, proposed 100 years ago. The results obtained from periodic changes in X-ray and radio emissions in tidal disruption events are essentially a new window on the workings of a rotating black hole that distorts space and time around it.

Spacetime Twisted: How the wobble was observed According to the study, researchers analyzing the tidal disruption event AT2020afhd observed that both the rotating disk of stellar debris and the black hole’s powerful jets were wobbling together, which repeated approximately every 20 days. This motion corresponds to a phenomenon called frame-dragging, where a rotating black hole literally drags spacetime with itself – an effect first described by Einstein and later quantified by Joseph Lens and Hans Thirring.

X-ray data from NASA’s Swift Observatory were collected by Carl G. The anomaly was discovered in conjunction with radio observations from the Jansky Very Large Array. Why this matters for gravity and black hole physics This is one of the most compelling evidence yet that real black holes obey the laws of general relativity even in very strong gravitational fields.

By confirming frame-dragging, scientists will be able to more clearly understand the black hole’s spin, the behavior of the accretion disk, and the formation of the jet. Tests of relativity, such as the detection of gravitational waves that confirmed Einstein’s theory during black hole mergers, support the idea that relativity still applies, even in the most extreme situations.