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General relativity verified by a triple-star system

Einstein’s theory of gravity — the general theory of relativity — is based on the principle that all objects accelerate identically in an external gravitational field. A triple-star system provides a stringent test of this principle.
  1. Clifford M. Will

    1. Clifford M. Will is in the Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.

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All bodies in a given gravitational field are thought to fall with the same acceleration. This idea, known as the equivalence principle, is central to our understanding of gravitational physics. It was promoted by thinkers ranging from the sixth-century scholar John Philoponus to Galileo; it is the founding principle of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and was famously demonstrated when Apollo astronaut David Scott dropped a hammer and a feather on the Moon and saw that they hit the lunar surface at the same time. For decades, experimentalists have verified the equivalence principle using exquisitely delicate instruments. Now, in a paper in Nature, Archibald et al.1 report the results of a remarkable test of the principle, in which the falling objects are two stellar remnants: a neutron star and a white dwarf.

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Nature 559, 40-41 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05549-4

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