General Relativity

The Matrix Agent Smith

It might be like The Matrix inside a black hole

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the physics rabbit hole goes.

By Elizabeth Rayne 2 months ago

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy Art Doublepulsar

Binary pulsar puts Einstein to the test… and he passes. Relatively speaking.

Whirling neutron stars make an excellent physics lab.

By Phil Plait 5 months ago

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy vla_chandra_g1.9+0.3

G1.9+0.3: The last galactic supernova

By Phil Plait 7 months ago

A simulation of the light emitted by material as it swirls around the black hole M87*. Red is long-wavelength radio waves, blue is millimeter-range waves (what the Event Horizon Telescopes sees), and green is near-infrared light.

If you want to disprove Einstein, it just got 500 times harder

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Artwork depicting a black hole drawing matter off a star, which then swirls around the black hole in an accretion disk. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

More black hole weirdness: They bend light so much they self-illuminate

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Artwork depicting (exaggerated) orbital precession of a star orbiting a black hole; every time it approaches the orientation of the orbit shifts. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Einstein's hand reaches out from a black hole and torques a star's orbit

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

Artwork of a pulsar emitting beams of energy as it orbits a white dwarf; the warping of spacetime is depicted as the change in an imaginary grid around them. The pulsar is not to scale; the white dwarf is hundreds of times larger. ESO/L. Calçada

A dead star's spin is dragging the fabric of spacetime along with it

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

A simulation of what a black hole with a disk of gas swirling around it would look, given the bizarre effects of its fierce gravity on the light from the disk. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman

What does a black hole look like up close?

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

When the spin axis of a black hole is tipped relative to the plane of the material coming in, it drags the material out of that plane as the fabric of spacetime warps around the black hole. Credit: ICRAR

Astronomers watch an active black hole dragging spacetime around it

By Phil Plait 3 years ago

Muons pose an interesting problem, but you can learn the solution in Minute Physics. Credit: Henry Reich

Muons, relatively speaking

By Phil Plait 3 years ago