The Change Mariner

NASA to Probe Einstein's Relativity Theory

Yahoo! News:

Almost a century after Albert Einstein began writing about relativity, NASA is poised to launch a mission 45 years in the making to put a little known tenet of his general relativity theory to its first test.

The Gravity Probe B satellite is the bland name given to one of the most precise scientific instruments ever built. But the project's $700 million price-tag adds glamour, as does its long history, surviving the Congressional budget ax seven times.

Lift-off of the Boeing Co. Delta 2 rocket carrying the probe is scheduled for Monday at 1:01 p.m. EDT from the rocket range at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

With four near-perfect spheres -- the roundest objects ever made, according to NASA -- the probe will try to show whether the Earth, which is known to warp both time and space with its mass, also twists them like tornado winds as it rotates.

Posted by Timothy Fredel at April 18, 2004 11:48 PM | TrackBack
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