Scientists are looking into ways to use the shaking of Earth’s surface to figure out if Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity is correct. They do this by examining shake waves that happen under different gravity rules. This helps them learn even more about what makes things move like they do.
Scientists have come up with a new test to see if gravity works in ways that are different from what we already know. They think that making the Earth shake could help them figure this out.
We don’t know much about 95% of what’s in the universe. This mysterious part is called the “dark sector” and it includes two unknowns – dark matter and dark energy. It looks like most galaxies are made up of 80% dark matter, but we can’t see it. Dark energy is something that spreads throughout space-time and makes the universe expand faster than normal.
We assume that dark matter and dark energy exist because of our understanding of gravity. This understanding is called the general theory of relativity by Albert Einstein. According to this science, gravity is caused by the bending and changing of something special we call space-time.
We understand that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is not perfect, as it can’t explain what happens at the center of black holes and at the start of the universe. Because of this, many people have thought of new or improved ways to look at gravity. These ideas are known as Theories of Modified Gravity and aim to further refine Einstein’s original model.
It’s hard to make a different theory from the normal version of general relativity that explains away dark matter and dark energy while still fitting what we know from our observations. So, even if we try adding new features to General Relativity, facing all these challenges makes it quite tricky.
Scientists have come up with a way for us to test different theories of gravity, and it doesn’t involve looking at the stars. We can just look down into Earth instead. They figured out that if modified (changed) gravity was real, then waves would travel through Earth differently than what we thought before.
Because we know so much about the Earth, like its weight and how something moves inside it, we can use this information to figure out if a new version of the law of gravity is accurate. So far, the data suggests that what Albert Einstein said about gravity remains true. But, if we use more tools to test it then we’ll have a better answer.
