Just want to make some remarks, as usual :) Interesting idea but slightly weird as light always 'propagate' at the speed of light. Light is also always 'uniformly moving', at the same speed, in, and from all 'frames of reference' (assuming a vacuum). That creates some remarkable effects when it meets proper mass. To get the idea on have to understand that SpaceTime is bumpy, like an uneven road due to the way planets and suns 'bend' the space 'geodesics' that makes the lights road.
That light 'deflects outwards' may seem counter intuitive. Why doesn't it just pull inwards when it meets the sun? Why 'outward'? Well, the light that never reach us do get pulled inwards. But, for the light escaping, as it meets the sun for example, assuming that it comes from behind, hidden to us (I'm exaggerating here). Then, as it meet the gravitational 'field' or 'room time geometry' surrounding the sun, you could think of it as it starting to prepare for an orbit bending slightly outward to follow the gravitational 'geodesic'. And the light entrapped could be seen as (exaggerating a lot!!) 'spiraling' around as it falls down into the sun.
Think of a ordinary orbit and the way it will decay as Earth drags the debris in. It doesn't go in a straight line down to some center, instead it will spiral down following an ever decreasing orbit around Earth. The same will happen with any matter passing that gets caught by Earths gravity. And if that matter came from the back side of our Earth you will still see it pass you on the other side, before it will hit.
It's all about 'frames of reference' and 'room time geometry'. For us standing at Earth the light will take a longer path in space as it gets deflected, and so seem 'delayed', as compared to following a 'straight line'. But according to the light itself it took the 'straightest line' it could, just following 'SpaceTimes geodesic road'. And if you don't like that way of thinking you can always think of light as trying to avoid 'expending energy' always choosing the 'cheapest path' through SpaceTime.
But 'deflecting' do sound weird when you 'know' that light bends towards gravity, not away from it. Thank (God of your choice) it's explainable in words :) And, that effect is also known as 'gravitational lensing'. ( Never liked that word, although I think I can see how they think. But every time I read it I think of a magnifying glass and the way it concentrates light, not 'deflecting' it?)
"The gravity from the massive object will “pull” on the photons as they pass, shifting their paths, and thereby affecting the image that we see in our telescopes. In the simple case of a distant point source of light (e.g., a far away star), and a compact spherically symmetric lens (e.g., a black hole), the bending angle is given by
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs.wordpress.com%2Flatex.php%3Flatex%3D%255Cdisplaystyle%2520%255Ctheta%253D%2528G%252Fc%255E2%25294M%252Fr%26amp%3Bbg%3Dffffff%26amp%3Bfg%3D000000%26amp%3Bs%3D0&hash=2b56477d7c0573a18c86c400b5ac7bc7)
In this equation M is the mass of the lens, r is the minimum distance between the (unperturbed) line-of-sight to the source and the lens, G is the gravitational constant, and c is the speed of light. This was a crucial prediction of Einstein’s new theory, and one way to test it was to see if the stars on the sky “jump” as the Sun (which is quite massive, and traverses the sky quite briskly) comes nearby on the sky. total solar eclipse (July 22, 2009)If you plug in the appropriate numbers above ((G/c^2)*M_sun = 1.5 km [geometric units], R_sun = 700,000 km), you find that a star should shift on the sky by 1.75 arcseconds (8.57e-6 radians) as the Sun approaches."
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Ive seen this kind of statement though too "In a very real sense, the delay experienced by light passing a massive object is responsible for the deflection of the light... The rays are always perpendicular to the wavefronts which mark the set of points with constant travel time from the star. In order to bend the light toward the star one needs to delay the wavefront near the star." Which surprises me?
How does one part of 'space' differ from another other than in its geometry? Snell's law about refraction is about light moving from one medium to another, e.g. from air into glass and then out on the other side, but 'from space to space'??