Cosmo 101 Orbits (for that good clean feeling, no matter what)

Ok so what do general relativity orbits have to do with our solar system? Well for a long time the orbit of Mercury was a bit mystery. It doesn’t quite follow the prediction of Kepler’s laws. It is just a tad bit off. This issue was first observed in 1859. Scientist tried to account for it but they couldn’t figure it out. And then all of the sudden there was this other theory of gravity! So plugged all the numbers in for the orbit of Mercury and low and behold it explained the difference. And if you look at the graphs from yesterday you can see why. The Newtonian graph the Einsteinian graphs are rather different. And this accounts for the difference we see in the Mercury’s orbit. This was the first definitive test of the theory of relativity, and of course it came out positive. The moral of the story is that all of the gravity stuff we’ve been talking about doesn’t only apply to imaginary alien races that live on the surface of a black hole. It applies to our own solar system too.