Posted on 04/09/2018 7:06:43 AM PDT by Simon Green
When the Hubble Space Telescope took a photo of distant galaxy cluster SDSS J0146-0929, it was able to capture an immensely massive blanket of hundreds of galaxies caught in each other's gravitational pulls.
In the photo, they look no more than inconsequential space dust: tiny, motionless, and remote.
But in fact, the combined mass of these galaxies is so great that it causes a distortion in the fabric of space and time. That is represented by a glowing ring in the center of the image, which is actually a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. The circle of light, called the "Einstein ring," occurs when light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster, which makes it seem that a galaxy is in multiple places at once.
Gravitational Lensing
Like the many enigmatic occurrences in our universe, gravitational lensing sounds complicated, but it's actually pretty simple to explain. What happens is that when light passes through a dense object with a massive gravitational pull, that object is able to distort the path of light. Because the light is forced to take a path other than a straight line, it circles around the galaxy as it's influenced by massive gravitational forces, creating the Einstein ring seen in the photo above.
"The mass of this galaxy cluster is large enough to severely distort the spacetime around it, creating the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the cluster," reads the Hubble Telescope's press accompanying post.
Bear in mind that the galaxy pictured above isn't really in multiple places at one — it just seems that way because of the light being altered and distorted by massive forces. As such, the Einstein ring looks somewhat like a ring with multiple copies of a galaxy around it.
Gravitational lensing can also sometimes magnify faraway objects in the universe, letting scientists and astronomers get more up-close views at space phenomena such as stars and galaxies, especially the more distant ones.
Gravitational Lensing And Einstein
Gravitational lensing is rooted in Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, hence why the resulting light effect is named after him.
"Hubble's sensitivity and high resolution allow it to see faint and distant gravitational lenses that cannot be detected with ground-based telescopes whose images are blurred by the Earth's atmosphere," according to the Hubble Space Telescope's website. "The gravitational lensing results in multiple images of the original galaxy each with a characteristically distorted banana-like shape or even into rings."
Have you ever tried it?
Regards,
Time distortions are fact. Even the GPS/ Navstar constellation accounts for it.
I’ve often distorted time when my wife would ask why I was out so late.
Not distortion. Those are calculation errors. We studied this in Post Grad school.
Nope. How you measure it may be necessary but time itself is not distorted. It is like saying you distorted a river by sticking your finger in it. The river stays the same but only the area around your finger is affected.
While space itself is indeed expanding, galaxies in clusters are close enough to each other for their gravity to keep them together. But 99.9999% (give or take) of the rest of the galaxies continue to get further apart.
You didn’t study the Navstar system, and obviously didn’t study physics.
So, no, those are not ‘calculation errors’.
Bad analogy. Study physics then get to us.
If you claim distorting time is impossible, then please point to your peer reviewed paper proving that claim.
Cannot prove a negative. Where are the peer reviewed papers "proving" time distortion? All of the thesis I have seen regarding this issue all relate to mathematical abhorations.
How do you measure time? If you point to a clock, then all you are doing is exposing the mechanism, not time itself. Decay is dependent upon environment, so that is variable. The passage of time is relative to the observer.
Wherever you go, there you are...
Time is relative. And so is distortion.
Yep. Calculation errors. Navstar is based upon gravitational time dilation. This essentially says that the closer a clock gets to the center of a gravitational well, the slower it goes. This is explained by the effects of gravity on the atomic particles within the clock/mass. The resistance of the decaying particles as they recede from the gravity well is greater than its movement towards the well, slowing it down. The farther away from the well, the faster it goes which is why GPS satellites have this algorithmic adjustment. This is not a distortion of time but of the mechanism by which we measure it.
Thanks Red Badger. Not as much fun as the Nurburgring. :^)
If that were true, then it would mean that our estimates of how far away galaxies are from us, and how old these galaxies are, and how LONG it took light from that galaxy to get to us.... are all completely wrong.
As far as being unable to separate TIME from spatial dimensions, ALL EFFORTS at FTL travel are attempts to remove TIME from spatial dimensions.
At high spatial distortions, the same thing happens, such as at the event horizon of a black hole.
We have no idea what really happens at the event horizon of a black hole.
That came from the 'expanding universe' theory, which has a giant flaw.
In order for the 'universe' to expand and yet keep the same 'density', it must somehow acquire MORE MASS.
Based on estimates of the size of the universe (which really only reflects our limited ability to perceive), if it were expanding, it would require more mass than we estimate is IN the ENTIRE KNOWN universe.
Again, another theory that doesn't hold up well.
First off, for it to be accurate the observer would have to be located in a NON MOVING SPOT. There is no such place in the Universe. Or perhaps, to be more clear, one cannot find such a spot as there is no 'reference' point to determine whether one is moving or not.
Second, the theory depends on there only being one observer. Two different observers would obtain two different timelines. Which one would then be correct ?
True. More precisely it would be a distortion of EM waves, of which visual 'light' is.
Distorting space, possibly.
I don't think you can distort space, as space is the absence of matter. You can't distort that which has no shape or form.
Distorting time? Impossible.
If you accept Einstein's theory, then time can be 'distorted'. Of course, it is only distorted (according to an earlier post) to the OBSERVER and not the OBSERVED. Which would mean It WAS distorted and AT THE SAME TIME was NOT DISTORTED.
Kinda like Quantum Theory. It is and it is not.
Where has it been asserted that the universe is keeping the same "density"? As space expands, the average "density" of the universe goes down, obviously.
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