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Close ✕The orbit of S2 is shown to precess as general relativity predicts
2020 · Recorded · space
The source states this happened, and its date is not in the future. The word the source used for it is observed.
The GRAVITY collaboration reported that the orbit of S2 does not close: its pericentre advances from orbit to orbit by the amount general relativity predicts for the Schwarzschild geometry. It is the same class of effect as the anomalous precession of Mercury that supported general relativity in 1915, measured in a field vastly stronger, around an object four million times the mass of the Sun. The measurement also constrains any extended mass distribution inside the orbit.
- Source
- Astronomy and Astrophysics (GRAVITY Collaboration) · GRAVITY Collaboration, Astronomy and Astrophysics 636, L5 (2020)
- Standing
- This record: partially verified · publisher: partially verified
- How it arrived
- Editorial — A dated record from the Richseen Atlas editorial corpus, written and cited by a curator. Not captured from anywhere, and not live.
- Where
- At a canonical Atlas object, placed and checked by a curator.
- Subject
- OBJECT_S2_STAR · OBJECT_SAGITTARIUS_A_STAR · Paranal Observatory and the GRAVITY interferometer
Sources polled — usgs: newest 2026-09-10 · nws: newest 2026-09-10 · jpl-cneos: states no publication time, last reached 2026-09-10 · Official source connected · Basemap: Natural Earth (public domain) — marks are drawn only from sourced coordinates