Astrophysics & Relativity
Clocks That Crawl: Gravitational Time Dilation, Black Holes, and the Physics of Deep Space Travel
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity predicts that time itself runs slower in stronger gravitational fields — a phenomenon confirmed by experiments here on Earth and observed in the behavior of GPS satellites. For researchers and students examining the theoretical underpinnings of deep space exploration, the implications near black holes and neutron stars are not merely exotic: they raise fundamental questions about what interstellar travel would actually mean for the humans undertaking it.