STARS MAGNIFY OTHERS

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 28, 3 February 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

STARS MAGNIFY OTHERS

Professor Albert Einstein recently gave the world another mathematical discovery, a celestial wonder new to astronomy, showing) that the space near a star is a magnifying glass. It means that one star tan, with improved astronomical instruments, be a magnifying glass, or telescope, for better seeing of another, more distant star. The reason, he explains, is the bending of light rays when they pa*s near the sun or any other massive star The rays, he finds, collect ill this space as they would in a lenß. Then at certain distant points the rays eo collected aro focussed, like the focus of a spy glass, opera glass or telescope.

Human eyes, at the right point in space would see this star-focussed image. There are stars suitably lined up, one far behind the other, to be seen in this manner from earth. But Professor Einstein points out that present optical equipment and present resolving power of telescopes is not sufficient to make these space images visible.

Star magnifying glasses go hack to tho eclipse of the 6UQ in 1919 which

Professor Einstein’s Theory

was the first verification ol Dr. Einstein s general theory of relativity. Stars wfiose light passed close to the sun during eclipse, were photographed Six months later, when again in the same position', but with tbe sun no longei near them, they were rephotograpbed on tbe same plates. The

star rays did not fall on the 6auie places in the photographic plates, showing that the rays had been deflect* d toward the sun, when they passed close to it during the eclipse. This verified Dr. Einstein’s piediction. Appl. ing this bending of light, Professor Einsteiu says it one scar is directly behind another, the magnification will show the distant star as a halo of light around the near-by one. The halo focuses, however, at a po!nt a vast distance beyond the lens star. Close.' to the nearby star and just off the line that focuses the halo, Dr. Einstein further states, is another point w her© two stars, would appear to the eye. The second kind of magnification, when two stars are* seen, he says, will give a brighter image of tbe more d.s-