This was an important early test of general relativity: the amount of light bending predicted by general relativity was confirmed by measuring the positions of stars near the Sun during a solar eclips...This was an important early test of general relativity: the amount of light bending predicted by general relativity was confirmed by measuring the positions of stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse in 1919. This effect has been observed recently by the Hubble Space Telescope in the form of gravitational lensing: the gravity of a relatively nearby galaxy will bend the light from more distant objects, producing multiple images of the distant object.