GRAVITATIONAL REDSHIFT FREE

Hans-Günter Ludwig from the Center for Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg an one of the co-authors of the research paper is an expert on such calculations of stellar spectra based on three-dimensional simulations of their outer layers. This influence on the absorption lines can only be taken into account with the help of computer simulations of the outer solar layers by calculating the shape of the absorption lines, as they would appear without the gravitational redshift.ĭr. Especially because the up and down movements of clumps of plasma at the sun's surface leads to distortions and shifts of the absorption lines, which are superimposed on the signal caused by the gravitational redshift. In fact, however, the measurements were much more complicated. Absorption lines are caused by chemical elements in the outer bubbling plasma layers of the sun, which absorb parts of the light from further inner zones, which leads to the more or less sharp, valley-shaped flaws in the spectrum.

In principle, they only had to compare the wavelength shift of absorption lines in the solar spectrum caused by the gravitational field of the sun with their undisturbed position. Herández and his colleagues hoped to find by observing the solar spectrum reflected by the moon with a high-precision spectrograph called HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) on the 3.6 meter telescope of the European Southern Observatory at Cerro La Silla in Chile. The exact value is 633 meters per second.Īnd it was precisely this predicted value that Dr.

This frequency change can be converted to a speed at which the sun would have to move away from us in order to achieve the same effect. One can also compare this with changes in the reception frequency of one’s favorite radio station: if one were to receive the broadcast not from a station on earth but hypothetically on the sun, one would have to correct the frequency of the transmitter a bit downwards in order to have an optimal reception again. This prediction is relatively simple: the energy loss of light can be expressed as an alteration of the frequency that the electromagnetic radiation of the light experiences after leaving the sun's surface in its gravitational field. The goal was ambitious, because the effect is very small, about two parts in a million! González Hernández was to measure this so-called gravitational redshift in the light of the sun and to compare it with the theoretically predicted value.

GRAVITATIONAL REDSHIFT FREE

The theory of relativity predicts exactly how much energy the light of the sun should lose from its surface when it has to virtually free itself from the gravitational field of the sun. Gonzalez Hernandez of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). in the bending of the trajectory of light rays passing the gravitational field of the sun or, more recently and spectacularly in the detection of gravitational waves.Īnother test is now being led by a team of astrophysicists led by Jonay I. And indeed, Einstein's theory could score again and again, and every prediction could be confirmed with the utmost precision, e.g. But the best physical theory is useless if it cannot be tested experimentally. Albert Einstein described gravity as a result of the curvature of so-called space-time.

Gravitational redshift