by JohnD » Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:43 am
Steve,
While the mass of Venus undoubtedly can "warp spacetime" the effect will be far too small to distort the image of the Sun.
What you may be thinking of is the first demonstration in 1919 of General Relativity's ability to 'bend light', when Eddington used the solar eclipse of that year to measure the effect of the
Sun's mass on light from a more distant star. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_g ... by_the_Sun
Einstein's Lens is another way to describe gravitational lensing, seen when a whole galaxy distorts light from a source beyond to show images of the object that we could not otherwise see. You see (!):
http://phys.org/news66492748.html
I say that Venus' mass can warp spacetime. Although we have no proof of that, the Gravity Probe B project has shown, by orbiting a probe around the Earth, that this is true for that planet's mass . But that was at the limit of currnent technology, and required the measurement of very small changes indeed, far less than the light beam distortion that would replicate the effetcs seen on the transit video. See:
http://einstein.stanford.edu/
Hope that's of interest - or even helpful!
John
Steve,
While the mass of Venus undoubtedly can "warp spacetime" the effect will be far too small to distort the image of the Sun.
What you may be thinking of is the first demonstration in 1919 of General Relativity's ability to 'bend light', when Eddington used the solar eclipse of that year to measure the effect of the [u]Sun's[/u] mass on light from a more distant star. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Deflection_of_light_by_the_Sun
Einstein's Lens is another way to describe gravitational lensing, seen when a whole galaxy distorts light from a source beyond to show images of the object that we could not otherwise see. You see (!): http://phys.org/news66492748.html
I say that Venus' mass can warp spacetime. Although we have no proof of that, the Gravity Probe B project has shown, by orbiting a probe around the Earth, that this is true for that planet's mass . But that was at the limit of currnent technology, and required the measurement of very small changes indeed, far less than the light beam distortion that would replicate the effetcs seen on the transit video. See: http://einstein.stanford.edu/
Hope that's of interest - or even helpful!
John