2009-07-12 07:26:43 - Astrophysical evidence clearly shows that important fundamentals have been incorrectly applied to concepts in gravitational lenses. Researchers have always assumed the effects of gravitational lensing are due to a direct interaction between light and gravity. Convincing evidence clearly shows that the light bending effects are due to indirect interactions between light and gravity only at the rim of the sun, not due to a direct interaction as suggested by General Relativity.

Recent observational evidence clearly indicates that important fundamentals of Mathematical Physics have been incorrectly applied to the so-called gravitational lenses. Since their discovery, the researchers have assumed that the effects of gravitational lensing are due to a direct interaction between light and gravity. Historically, astronomers have noted that the light rays from the stars that pass near the rim of

the sun deviate from their linear trajectories. New evidence shows that all the astronomical observations on the effects of the gravitational lensing of the light rays have been due to an indirect interaction between the light and the gravitation of the sun, not due to a direct interaction. The thin plasma rim of the sun serves as an indirect interaction between the gravitational field of the sun and the rays of light from the stars. Recent astrophysical evidence convincingly shows that there is only an indirect interaction between light and gravity in empty vacuum space. This observed shift in the direction of propagation of the light can be explained by means of an electrostatic interaction of the light with the thin plasma rim of the sun. (See the Figure: Gravitational Lensing According to Observation.) The solar plasma itself possesses a characteristic spatial gradient due to the effects of the spatial gradient of the gravitational field of the sun. From astrophysical observations, a direct interaction between the gravitational field of the sun and the rays of star light does not take place in the empty vacuum space near the sun.

Modern Astrophysics would allow us to easily detect any presence of gravitational lensing in the empty vacuum space for distances of several solar radii above the plasma rim of the sun according to the predictions of General Relativity. At the surfaces of the analytical Gaussian spheres of radius 2R, 3R, 4R and 5R, respectively, an effect of at least a half, a third, a fourth or a fifth part of the effect of gravitational lensing observed in the plasma rim of the sun, should be observable. In fact, new evidence shows that in the vacuum space at short distances just above the surface of the sun, the gravitational lensing does not take place. The analytical Gaussian spherical surface law applies directly to the sun's mass M that is enclosed by the Gaussian spheres of radii 2R, 3R, 4R and 5R. The gravitational effect acting on a ray of light for an impact parameter of 2R, 3R, 4R and 5R would theoretically depend only on the amount of mass M of the sun that is enclosed by the corresponding analytical Gaussian sphere and varies according to the factor 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 1/5 respectively. Apparently, recent astrophysical observations are not consistent with the so-called gravitational lensing according to Einstein's theory of General Relativity. In this region of empty vacuum space just above the surface of the sun where there is no solar plasma, there exists no evidence of optical distortions in the form of gravitational lensing.