5. Spring view of lunar eclipse
In fact, scientists used eclipses to test Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Einstein proposed his theory in 1915. In 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington of the Royal Astronomical Society launched an expedition to the West African island of Príncipe to observe a solar eclipse and prove or disprove Einstein’s theory.
By observing the eclipse, Eddington was able to prove that the sun creates gravity by bending space and time around it. As Professor Pedro Ferreira from the University of Oxford told Science Daily, this “first observational proof of general relativity sent shockwaves through the scientific establishment.”
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