Galaxy (illustration).
Galaxy (illustration).iStock

A new study validates Einstein's theory of general relativity in a distant galaxy, for the first time.

Since the theory of relativity was first published, it has been tested a number of times within our solar system. But according to the researchers behind the new study – an international team of astronomers led by Thomas Collett of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in Britain – this is the first precise test of general relativity on a large astronomical scale.

Using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, the research team found that gravity behaves the same way in a faraway galaxy as it does in our solar system.

This is just what Einstein's theory predicted.

The researchers tested the assumption that "the same laws of physics we see working here on Earth are true anywhere else," Terry Oswalt, an astronomer and chair of physical sciences at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said in an email to Space.com. Verifying general relativity "at all possible scales (especially the largest scale) is fundamentally important to physics as a whole, and to cosmology in particular," added Oswalt, who was not involved in the new study.