Monday, 30 July 2012

Gravitational Lens Effect


With Einstein, gravity was dictated by the mass an object had, not how big or how small. With that, he inferred that gravity itself is able to bend light and space itself, causing anomalies in the universe to be solved. What confirmed this mystery was when there was a solar eclipse, where the astronomers measured the suns position and size during the phases of the eclipse. The position of the star had been shifted slightly, this was due to the light being bent by sheer gravitational force.

 Fig. 1 Graphical Representation of Gravitational Lens Effect


This led to the suspicion that something of massive stature, not so much large but something with overwhelming amounts of mass existed between the source of light and the observation point (i.e. the person viewing the star). The observation the viewer will have is that the object will have a twin right next to it, identical in almost every way. This lead to suspicion since it was highly unlikely the source which was both exact could be probable. With that in-mind, it was concluded that there was a great gravitational force splitting or bending the light around the massive object and then reconnecting the light to the viewer giving this distortional mirage. This was then called the gravitational lens effect. The object that distorted the light was unseen (usually a black hole is to blame for such a gravitational impact, though Dark Matter can also be responsible for these events)

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