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NASA Gravity Probe Set for Launch
The Real Dr John writes "NASA announced
yesterday that its longest running program, Gravity Probe B, was ready and
scheduled for launch on April 17th. The project has taken 44 years to complete,
at a cost of approximately $700 million. The reason for the high cost is that
the probe contains the most sensitive gyroscopic equipment ever created, which
will be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity. Einstein predicted that the
gravity created by a large body warped space-time, but he also predicted that if
the large body was rotating it would create a drag effect on space-time
known as frame dragging. Gravity Probe B will be able to test
Einstein's theory using Earth's relatively small gravitational field because the
instruments are so sensitive."
The earth is a mass-energy. According to General Relativity, as a mass-energy, it should create a little dimple in the local space-time fabric. It is also theorized that the daily rotation of the earth causes a twisting of the local space-time fabric. This effect is known as frame dragging and it should manifest itself as a force that pushes a gyroscope's axis out of alignment as it orbits the Earth. [GP-B will be using four small, incredibly precise gyroscopes as its main tool for detection of relativistic effects on the local space-time fabric.] Gravity Probe B will attempt to measure the force, gravitomagnetism, giving scientists an important insight into how it might affect objects that are much larger than ping pong balls, such as black holes. At the same time, the gyroscopes will experience a much bigger force - the geodetic effect - which is a result of the warping of space-time predicted by Einstein. This force will tend to push their axes in a direction perpendicular to the frame-dragging effect which allow it to be measured separately. The geodetic effect is hundreds of times bigger than frame dragging and the experiment should measure its size with an accuracy of 0.01 per cent the most severe test of general relativity ever undertaken.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Gravity Probe A was the launch of an atomic clock on a suborbital rocket, designed to measure time dilation as it passed into weaker areas of gravity.
I believe it was done in 1976
I found the following quote especially interesting:
Francis Everitt, the principal investigator of the project, said: "Aren't Einstein's theories all established and confirmed? After all it was 50 years ago that Einstein himself died and it's 100 years next year when he developed his first theory of relativity. Don't we already know it all? The answer is no."
I wonder what other theories that are generally accepted throughout the scientific community have not been completely tested and/or verified. And, quite frankly, I'm surprised that there isn't much more VC and grant money available to go and do research on stuff like this. Afterall, these projects are quite prestigious.
See article
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
No, it won't serve as a test of string theory braneworld scenarios, and no, that doesn't make it "antiquated", either. There are lots of reasons to do the experiment, other than its ability to verify somebody's speculative pet theory. (Heck, string theory doesn't even predict that our universe is confined to a brane; it's just a possibility within string theory.)
The point of GPB is merely to test the accuracy of general relativity's predictions. If GR is wrong, there are many ways it could be wrong, and thus GPB might be able to tell us which way is correct, or rule out alternative theories that predict effects that aren't measured.
Having worked on GP-B for a bit...
Just about all of the engineering that's gone into the project is to eliminate interference from everything else; those gyros are going to be just about the best-isolated objects we've ever made.
Yes, they need to account for solar wind, as well as atmospheric drag, as small as it is at that height. This is done by flying the satellite drag-free; one of the gyros free-floats inside its housing, and if it starts to drift off-center, the satellite fires its thrusters to reposition _the satellite_ so that the free-floating gyro is again in the center of its cavity.
This way, any external force on the satellite can be removed, since the gyro is shielded from them by the bulk of the satellite, and the satellite then follows the gyro on a perfect gravitational orbit.
Magnetic fields are filtered out to some ungodly factor; the leftover fields inside the science probe are on the of 10^-17 gauss.
They also account for micrometeorites, electric noise, and many other error sources. There's a reason this has taken 40 years.