Typical overtone chords in the gravitational waves produced when black holes collide could be used to test general relativity, a mathematical analysis by a RIKEN physicist has shown 1. When black ...

Planets orbiting dead stars known as white dwarfs might be able to remain habitable thanks to general relativity subtly altering their motion. When stars like our sun run out of fuel, they expand and ...

General relativity describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime induced by matter and energy. Exact solutions of the Einstein field equations play a central role in elucidating phenomena ranging ...

New impressions A visualization of a curved space–time “sea” from the general-relativity simulations carried out by the authors.(Courtesy: James Mertens) From the Genesis story in the Old Testament to ...

Symmetries lie at the heart of general relativity, linking geometric invariance to fundamental conserved quantities. A symmetry of spacetime is represented by a vector field whose flow preserves ...

A spinning magnetar twists space-time itself, causing the disk of material around it to wobble and produce the ultra-bright flashes of this peculiar kind of supernova. (Santa Barbara, Calif.) — For ...

Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity is one of the towering achievements of 20th-century physics. Published in 1916, it explains that what we perceive as the force of gravity in fact arises ...

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On January 14, 2025, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGOs) recorded a cosmic tremor unlike any before. Named GW250114, the signal was the ‘loudest’ gravitational wave ...

For decades, astronomers have used distant supernovae as cosmic lighthouses to test fundamental physics and to measure the universe. For Joseph Farah, a fifth-year graduate student at UC Santa Barbara ...