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That's because it is fundamentally incompatible with the other big beast in the physics zoo: Quantum theory.

The discovery of gravitational waves in 2015 was a decisive victory, but, like its predecessors, it too might be about to fall. This space-time picture has now been on the throne for over 100 years, and has so far vanquished all pretenders to its crown. To us that looks like a Newtonian gravitational pull. Massive objects such as the sun warp the space-time around them, and so Earth's orbit is simply the result of our planet following this curvature.

He said that all objects in the universe sit in a smooth, four-dimensional fabric called space-time.

Instead of a pull, Einstein saw gravity as the result of curved space. Īll About Space (opens in new tab) magazine takes you on an awe-inspiring journey through our solar system and beyond, from the amazing technology and spacecraft that enables humanity to venture into orbit, to the complexities of space science. This article is brought to you by All About Space (opens in new tab). This new picture neatly explained inconsistencies in Mercury's orbit, and was famously confirmed by observations of a solar eclipse off the coast of Africa in 1919. Newton ruled for two-and-a-half centuries before Albert Einstein turned up in 1915 to usurp him with his General Theory of Relativity. According to his ideas we orbit the sun because it is pulling on us, the moon orbits Earth because we are pulling on it. He said all objects with mass have a gravitational attraction towards each other. Then Isaac Newton came along to explain that gravity is why the planets orbit the sun. Despite much initial opposition, the old geocentric picture eventually buckled under the weight of evidence from the newly invented telescope. Then Nicolaus Copernicus stuck his neck out to say that the whole system would be a lot simpler if we are just another planet orbiting the sun. First, we thought Earth was at the center of the solar system - an idea that stood for over 1,000 years. This has happened many times in the history of physics and astronomy.