A number of astrophysical objects offer the possibility of detecting directly the observable consequences of two strong-field predictions of general relativity that have no weak-field or Newtonian counterparts: the presence of a horizon around a collapsed object and the lack of stable circular orbits in the vicinity of a neutron star or black hole. As in most other areas of astrophysics research, we have to rely on imaging, spectral, or timing observations in order to reveal the information of the strong-field effects that is encoded in the detected photons. The construction of gravitational wave observatories will offer, for the first time in the near future, a wealth of additional probes into the inner workings of gravitational fields in the vicinities of compact objects.
In the following, I review a number of recent attempts to probe strong-field phenomena that have used a
variety of techniques and were applied to different astrophysical objects. I will only discuss
phenomena that are observable in the electromagnetic spectrum and refer to a number of excellent
reviews on the gravitational phenomena that are anticipated to be detected by gravitational wave
observatories [137, 58].
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