The probe will test whether space-time can be distorted by Earth's rotation
Published:
20 April 2004 y., Tuesday
A satellite that will put Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity to the test has had its launch delayed until Tuesday.
The US space agency's $700m (£387m) probe was due to launch on a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Base in California at 1701 GMT.
The probe will now wait until 1657 GMT on Tuesday for another launch attempt. Ground controllers could not verify the rocket had all its correct flight software loaded, and halted the launch.
Gravity Probe B will test Einstein's ideas about space and time and how the Earth distorts them.
It will carry four near-perfect spheres in gyroscopes to help verify two key elements of Einstein's theory. The probe will align itself with its "guide star" IM Pegasi, so that the spin axes of the spheres point to this star.
Over the course of the year their spin axes will be monitored for tiny changes that could be caused by the effects Einstein described.
Šaltinis:
BBC News
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
The concept that each person on the planet is just six handshakes removed from every other person has frightening implications
more »
The World Health Organization, WHO, says it is starting a special fund to combat SARS, primarily in mainland China and Hong Kong
more »
European countries are to step up checks on air passengers arriving from countries affected by the Sars virus
more »
Kazakh Prime Minister during a government session on 29 April ordered that a special program of urgent measures be drawn up to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome
more »
The secret to a long life
more »
Fear of SARS led to the headmistress of Harrogate Ladies’ College yesterday locking herself in a boarding house with 43 of her pupils
more »
Some of the starkest early reports about the deadly SARS pneumonia came not from health authorities, but from Internet discussions in which emergency-room physicians swapped details about the start of the epidemic
more »
Officials say 53 now have died; WHO experts study possible animal link to mystery disease
more »
The construction of the Yuri Gagarin Space Station would require 3-3.5 years
more »
Three Taiwan public health experts have traveled to mainland China to join their counterparts from other countries in surveying the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) there
more »