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Spacecraft to test Einsteins relativity theory |
In what is billed to be the largest
scientific instrument ever built, scientists plan to use three spacecraft flying
three million miles apart to fire laser beams at each other across the emptiness
of space in a bid to finally prove whether a theory proposed by Albert Einstein
is correct.
Physicists hope the ambitious mission will allow them to
prove the existence of gravitational waves — a phenomenon predicted in
Einstein's famous theory of general relativity and the last piece of his theory
still to be proved correct, reports the Telegraph.
The three
spacecraft will be put into orbits at a distance of 5 million kilometres from
one another, connected only by a laser beam that will measure their positions
accurate to 40 millionths of a millionth of a metre.
The mission, a
collaboration between Nasa and the European Space Agency, will use three
spacecraft flying in formation while orbiting the sun, with each housing
floating cubes of gold platinum.
Laser beams fired between the
spacecraft will then be used to measure minute changes in the distance between
each of the cubes, caused by the weak waves of gravity that ripple out from
catastrophic events in deep space.
Einstein's theory of general
relativity predicted that when large objects such as black holes collide,
ripples in space and time flow outwards. These ripples are called gravitational
waves. A panel of international experts have now set out a detailed plan for the
mission and how it can be used to reveal new insights about the universe around
us.
Professor Jim Hough, an expert on gravitational waves at Glasgow
University and a member of the committee that drew up the plans, said:
"Gravitational waves are the last piece of Einstein's theory of general
relativity that has still to be proved correct."
"They are produced
when massive objects like black holes or collapsed stars accelerate through
space, perhaps because they being pulled towards another object with greater
gravitational pull like a massive black hole. Unfortunately we haven't been able
to detect them yet because they are very weak. However, the new tests we are
working on have great potential to allow detection," the Telegraph quoted Hough
as saying.
Ground based attempts to detect gravitational waves on
Earth have so far been unsuccessful and can only look for gravitational waves
with relatively high frequencies.
Scientists have already been able
to prove a number of predictions made by Einstein's theory of general
relativity, including that light is bent by gravity, gravity travels at a
constant speed, that time can be warped by gravity and that space and time can
bend. Einstein's other theories including his most famous formula E=mc2 have
also withstood scientific testing.
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