  The established way of looking at special relativity is based on Einstein
postulates: the principle of relativity and the constancy of the velocity of
light. In the most general geometric approach to the theory of special
relativity, the principle of relativity, in contrast to Einstein formulation,
is only a consequence of the (pseudo-Euclidean) geometry of space-time. The
space-time geometric approach deals with all possible choices of coordinates
(clock synchronization conventions) of the chosen reference frames. In previous
papers, we pointed out the very important role that the space-time geometric
approach plays in accelerator engineering. The purpose of this paper is to
provide a novel insight into the problem of aberration of light based on the
space-time geometric approach. We will investigate the case of a
plane-polarized light wave reflected from mirrors moving tangentially to its
surface. It is generally believed that there is no aberration (deviation of the
energy transport) for light reflected from mirrors moving transversely (also
for light transmitted through a hole in the moving opaque screen or,
consequently, through a moving open end of the telescope barrel). We show that
this typical textbook statement is incorrect. The aberration of starlight seems
to be one of the simplest phenomena of astronomical observations. The lack of
symmetry, between the cases when either the source or detector is moving is
shown clearly on the basis of the separation of binary stars. Such aberration
is not observed. We have shown that the fact that we do not see myriads of
widely separated binaries in wild gyration does not require any fundamental
change of outlook, but it does require that aberration of "distant" stars
should be treated in the framework of space-time geometric approach.
