PASADENA, Calif., April 3 (UPI) -- A U.S. satellite set to launch in two weeks will put Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity on the distortion of space and time to the test.
NASA has scheduled to launch Gravity Probe B on April 17 for a mission that was first proposed in 1959, the BBC reported. The probe will test two of Einstein's theories about the nature of space and time and how the Earth distorts them.
On board the probe will be four ping-pong-sized balls made from quartz and sealed in a vacuum. Project scientists say these are the closest to perfect spheres ever made, and will be chilled to near absolute zero and enclosed in the largest vacuum bottle ever flown into space.
In 1916, Einstein theorized that space and time form a structure that can be curved by the presence of a body, such as Earth. Minute changes in axis of the spinning balls on Gravity Probe B will detect how space and time are warped by Earth's presence, and how the Earth's rotation twists and drags space-time around with it.
