"Rethinking Gravity: How Spacetime Imprints Challenge the Mass-Only Paradigm

Gravity remains a poorly understood phenomenon: is it an intrinsic property of spacetime, a manifestation of mass interacting with spacetime, or something more subtle? Observations of black hole binaries suggest that apparent gravitational influence often exceeds dynamic mass by ~29%, while neutron stars show no such discrepancy. This paper proposes that spacetime retains a persistent imprint of mass-energy configurations, influencing gravitational fields beyond the current material presence. Such a memory effect offers a natural explanation for excess gravitation often attributed to dark matter, provides insight into black hole growth, and suggests a reinterpretation of Hawking radiation as an interaction with spacetime memory rather than mass evaporation