Strongly-Curved Spacetime
With neutron stars we begin to enter the realm of strongly curved spacetime, where the effects of general
relativity are important and where space and time are warped by intense gravitational fields. The
distortion of apparent star positions illustrated in the animation of the left panel is one example
of such strongly curved spacetime.
We shall encounter
shortly the ultimate in warped spacetime: the black hole, which can bend spacetime so severely that
the interior of the black hole is literally cut off from the space and time of the rest of the Universe.