I was looking at how our solar system works and see that essentially the curvature from space and gravity or, lack of creates the movement of our planetary systems. I couldn’t seem to make sense of the details of how space is similar to a fabric and can be shaped in some way.
The example used was the age old blanket with a bowling ball in the center creating a wide curvature leading to the edges of the blanket.
How is this possible but can’t be seen, nor does it cause friction?
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You can see it, albeit indirectly. In order to “see” anything, you’re looking at light that has interacted with the thing you’re trying to observe in some way.
Light has no mass, so according to your classical gravity force equation you know that gravity isn’t exerting any force on it. And that’s true – light just follows what’s called its “geodesic” path through spacetime – or the trajectory of an object if it simply moves forward in spacetime with no forces being acted on it.
Despite that, light still bends around massive objects in the universe, a phenomenon known as [gravitational lensing](https://esahubble.org/wordbank/gravitational-lensing/#:~:text=Gravitational%20lensing%20occurs%20when%20a,accordingly%20called%20a%20gravitational%20lens.). This is light simply moving forward through spacetime, still not experiencing a force – but the spacetime itself is curved.
In that way, you’re “seeing” the curvature of spacetime. You’re just looking at the effect it has on light, which makes sense because, well, that’s how you see things
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