A citizen scientist validates General Relativity.

[Jehanne]

How do we know that there isn't something else in space that bends light?

Water bends light, and in the right conditions you can't visually prove that it is in between the eye and the object.

Is it possible that space is filled with something which isn't percieved by material beings and their material instruments?

While an absense of physical evidence isn't a licence for the imagination, it is presumptuous to say that what is observable is the only truth.

How do you know that angels or other invisible beings do not push planets?  After all, we can't perceive them, and to be sure, they could be lots of them?!  Just think, New England lost the Super Bowl because some angels were offended by Donald Trump's support of "America's Team"!  That's the reason for all of the dropped passes!!

[polymath257]

Well, in a sense, that is how we discovered dark matter and how we investigate its properties. Dark matter doesn't interact with ordinary matter or light very strongly (if at all). So in a sense, it satisfies your criteria.

We use the way that dark matter bends light to map out where it is and how much is there. We do that by looking at slight distortions in the way light travels from more distant objects. So, there is a sense in which we are detecting the water just as you suggested.

That's what I was thinking, although I haven't heard of applying dark matter to light bending.

Here is a recent article using 'micro-lensing' to map out the distribution of dark matter.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...101807.htm

Here, the lensing is from the interaction of the light with gravity produced from the dark matter.

Previously, larger scale lesning has been used to detect dark matter in clusters of galaxies, which was one way we concluded that dark matter really exists (as opposed to a difference in the law of gravity causing the effects we see).

[Banned]

That's what I was thinking, although I haven't heard of applying dark matter to light bending.

Here is a recent article using 'micro-lensing' to map out the distribution of dark matter.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...101807.htm

Here, the lensing is from the interaction of the light with gravity produced from the dark matter.

Previously, larger scale lesning has been used to detect dark matter in clusters of galaxies, which was one way we concluded that dark matter really exists (as opposed to a difference in the law of gravity causing the effects we see).

Thanks !

[vorlon13]

Another neat thing about lensing is in a few places the effect is strong enough and aligns with a drastically more distant/ancient object that it can brighten it up to 20 times allowing us to study it when otherwise we wouldn't be able to.

[Succubus]

Yep.