{"id":14210,"date":"2004-04-21T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-21T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/21\/gravity-probe-b-launched\/"},"modified":"2004-04-21T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2004-04-21T11:12:00","slug":"gravity-probe-b-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/21\/gravity-probe-b-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"Gravity Probe B Launched"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA successfully launched the Gravity Probe B satellite yesterday<\/a> after a software problem forced a delay on Monday. The Gravity Probe B<\/a> is designed to test two heretofore unproven parts of Einstein’s general theory of relativity:<\/p>\n

The experiment will check, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an Earth satellite orbiting at 400-mile altitude directly over the poles. So free are the gyroscopes from disturbance that they will provide an almost perfect space-time reference system. They will measure how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and, more profoundly, how the Earth’s rotation drags space-time around with it. These effects, though small for the Earth, have far-reaching implications for the nature of matter and the structure of the Universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The gyroscopes are contained in almost-perfect spheres fabricated to an amazing tolerance:<\/p>\n

These spheres, the size of Ping-Pong balls, are the roundest objects ever made by man. The tiny spheres are enclosed inside a housing chamber to prevent disruption from sound waves, and chilled to almost absolute zero to prevent their molecular structure from creating a disturbance. The accuracy of these gyroscopes is 30 million times greater than any gyroscope ever built.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that this is a very cool experiment, one which will hopefully allow us to better understand some of the underlying physics governing our universe. The Gravity Probe B<\/a> home page has a whole lot more information and links to other sites if you’re interested in more details.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA successfully launched the Gravity Probe B satellite yesterday after a software problem forced a delay on Monday. The Gravity Probe B is designed to test two heretofore unproven parts of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: The experiment will check, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Gravity Probe B Launched”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[118],"class_list":["post-14210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-imported"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driko.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}