{"id":602468,"date":"2026-04-23T22:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602468\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:53:08","slug":"physicist-bends-light-with-gravity-to-make-new-mobile-sensing-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602468\/","title":{"rendered":"Physicist Bends Light With Gravity to Make New Mobile Sensing Device"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astrophysicists talk a lot about gravitational lensing<\/a>, one of the more fun aspects of light\u2019s infamous particle-wave duality<\/a>. The phenomenon shows, in predictable and measurable ways, how the tiny mass within each photon of light zipping out from a distant star actually leads that light to bend within the gravitational pull of any dense celestial bodies along its path.<\/p>\n

Now, a physicist at the University of Wollongong has created a new fiber optic laser system\u2014one small and sturdy enough to be operated from an aircraft or even a submarine\u2014that has mastered this gravitational bending of light for remote sensing applications. According to Enbang Li, who designed and tested the new device, this light-bending sensor could one day be deployed in aerial surveys for underground mapping and environmental monitoring, as well as undersea navigation systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cTiny shifts in gravity can reveal critical changes beneath or around us from underground water levels to magma build-ups below volcanoes that could indicate future eruptions,\u201d Li said in a press statement.<\/p>\n

Li sees further applications that could include geological resource exploration, climate monitoring, and sonar or radar-like natural hazard assessments. \u201cOur research suggests light-based sensing technologies may one day provide a new way to detect and monitor those changes with very high precision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gravity mapping <\/p>\n

Scientists and engineers across areas like defense and mining have all relied on various mechanical forms of gravity sensing for a while now. But these measurement methods, which are used to detect features like the density of rocks, hidden pockets of water, or underground cave networks, can sadly be rendered inaccurate by even subtle vibrations and movements.<\/p>\n

Li\u2019s light-bending sensor tech, or \u201cgravity mapping,\u201d as he called it in his new study<\/a> in Scientific Reports, would offer distinct advantages in terms of improved mobility and sensitivity. (Li\u2019s paper is still undergoing editorial review at the journal, but an unedited version was published to provide early access to the findings).<\/p>\n

The device is deceptively small, about three feet (one meter) tall, containing two coils of fiber optic cable that would each unspool to a little over six miles (10 kilometers) long. The device works by comparing and contrasting the time lag between two beams of laser light as each beam rapidly pumps photons through their own respective spiraling coils and back. These vanishingly small time delays, on the order of a few picoseconds, provide the scalable individual data points that record this laser light\u2019s disturbance due to gravity\u2014which Li tested in the lab via his two coils\u2019 proximity to a cylindrical, 159-lb (72 kg) hunk of steel on wheels.<\/p>\n

\"FibreAbove, physicist Enbang Li holds a fiber optic system similar to that used in his new measurement tool. Credit: University of Wollongong <\/p>\n

The University of Wollongong described the device as \u201can early, proof-of-concept\u201d in their press statement, noting that further research \u201cexploring additional interactions between light and gravitational fields\u201d would be needed before this technology is robust enough for use in the field.<\/p>\n

How constant is the speed of light, really? <\/p>\n

As Li noted in this study, these experiments were conducted in an optics lab which is \u201cfully airconditioned\u201d and in a \u201cvibration-free building,\u201d two factors that helped rule out other variables while calibrating this new measurement device.<\/p>\n

Even so, as he acknowledged in his study, there is still \u201cmore work which should be done to further identify the sources for generating the fluctuations in the measured time delay signals.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, in that process, these time lags may also wind up re-litigating some fairly fundamental questions in physics, according to Li\u2014specifically the longstanding premise that the speed of light operates as a constant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1905, Albert Einstein postulated that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and independent of the observer\u2019s motion,\u201d Li said in a statement. \u201cOur experimental results suggest that photons can interact with the Earth\u2019s gravitational field in ways that may influence how light transmits, which provides a new perspective on this longstanding assumption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astrophysicists talk a lot about gravitational lensing, one of the more fun aspects of light\u2019s infamous particle-wave duality.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[17683,49780,21320,199,79,212875],"class_list":{"0":"post-602468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-emerging-technologies","9":"tag-gravitational-lenses","10":"tag-gravity","11":"tag-physics","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sensor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}