NAILING IT DOWN

There is something that I for one, find somewhat dismal about astronomy beyond the solar system, and that is its inability to engage in independent verification. We all know about the Red-shift, which is supposed to be the Doppler shift of an expanding universe that started with the Big Bang. But there are others who say it may not be a Doppler shift, and there never was a Big Bang. It all leaves one with a sense of ugly uncertainty.

But thank God, the failure of Einsteinian aberration in double stars does not belong to this group. There are thousands of double stars to choose from. Many of them can be observed by three different methods: optically, spectroscopically (the spectra of the components moving toward and away from the earth) and the laws of celestial mechanics. All three agree. For example, the star in the constellation Sagittarius is a binary with a period of only 21.14 years. The stars are visible optically, their masses and velocities can be measured spectroscopically, and the celestial mechanics are in agreement, too. If aberration were dependent on the relative velocity of star and Earth, the aberration would be some 20 times greater than measured, and could not escape detection even if it was not looked for.

No Big Bang uncertainties here. No out for Einstein.