How do we know that Newton's Laws apply outside the solar system?

Because the orbits of binary stars and even binary galaxies make perfectly good sense using simple Newtonian physics. They give us estimates for the masses of stars and galaxies that are consistent with other measures we have of these properties, and Newtonian physics is the basis for all stellar evolution theory which leads to consistent predictions for what stars look like, their temperatures and masses.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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