Schwarzschild precession in star's orbit, illustration

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Illustration showing Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S0-2 around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. This movement is predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Observations with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) revealed the orbit, which is shaped like a rosette and not like an ellipse as predicted by Newton's theory of gravity, for the first time. This illustration exaggerates the effect for easier visualisation.

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Size: 5400px × 3240px
Location:
Photo credit: © EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: *, -, -2, artwork, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysics, black, center, centre, cgi, cosmology, digitally, einstein, galactic, general, generated, geodesics, gravitational, gravity, hole, illustration, milky, motion, orbit, orbiting, physics, precession, relativity, s0-, sagittarius, schwarzschild, sgr, shape, star, supermassive