ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Post-Newtonian expansion

Do you know what Isaac Newton discovered long ago? He discovered that the force of gravity is what makes things stick together on Earth. But, there are some situations in space where the force of gravity doesn't work the same way, and things act differently than we expect them to. Scientists needed a way to explain these situations, so they came up with a new idea called Post-Newtonian Expansion.

You know how sometimes you have to add some extra numbers to figure out a tough math problem? Post-Newtonian Expansion is kind of like that. It's a way for scientists to add extra bits to Isaac Newton's theory about gravity so that it explains what happens in more tricky situations.

One situation is when things are moving faster than usual, like when planets are orbiting each other really quickly. Another is when there are really strong gravitational forces, like what happens close to a black hole. These weird situations are called "relativistic" because they deal with how things move relative to each other instead of just how they move on their own.

So, scientists use Post-Newtonian Expansion to add in all these extra things to Isaac Newton's theory to explain things in a more complicated world. It's like putting on a space suit before exploring new worlds - we need the extra gear to help us explore these puzzling situations.