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New Satellite Experiment Helps Confirm Einstein's Equivalence Principle (presse.cnes.fr)
Part of Einstein's theory of general relativity posits that gravity equals inertial mass -- and for the first time in 10 years, there's new evidence that he's right. Slashdot reader orsayman reports:
Most stories around space today seem to revolve around SpaceX, but let's not forget that space is also a place for cool physics experiments. One such experiment currently running into low orbit is the MICROSCOPE satellite launched in 2016 to test the (weak) Equivalence Principle (also knows as the universality of free fall) a central hypothesis in General Relativity.
The first results confirm the principle with a precision ten times better than previous experiments. And it's just the beginning since they hope to increase the precision by another factor of 10. If the Equivalence Principle is still verified at this precision, this could constrain or invalidate some quantum gravity theories. For those of you who are more satellite-science oriented, the satellite also features an innovative "self destruct" mechanism (meant to limit orbit pollution) based on inflatable structures described in this paper.
"The science phase of the mission began in December 2016," reports France's space agency, "and has already collected data from 1,900 orbits, the equivalent of a free fall of 85 million kilometres or half the Earth-Sun distance."
The first results confirm the principle with a precision ten times better than previous experiments. And it's just the beginning since they hope to increase the precision by another factor of 10. If the Equivalence Principle is still verified at this precision, this could constrain or invalidate some quantum gravity theories. For those of you who are more satellite-science oriented, the satellite also features an innovative "self destruct" mechanism (meant to limit orbit pollution) based on inflatable structures described in this paper.
"The science phase of the mission began in December 2016," reports France's space agency, "and has already collected data from 1,900 orbits, the equivalent of a free fall of 85 million kilometres or half the Earth-Sun distance."
Hey, why is this not another "RUSSIAN COLLUSION" story?
Every other story was Russian-bashing.
Come on! We want to hear the paid-off Slashdot "editors" shove more conspiracy theory in our faces that "THE RUSSIANS" made us vote for Donald Trump.
If our planet stopped rotating and revolving around the sun, we actually would fly off the planet if we jumped?
...inertial mass equals GRAVITY! Oh, wait...
Is there any lay text around that explains how the experiment works? The article doesn't have and talks more about space pollution than relativity & gravity.
For those of you who don't pay attention to space matters, de-orbiting satellites is important because of something called the Kessler Syndrome. In effect, too much traffic up there would make it very difficult to get into space for thousands of years. This is also part of why the Chinese anti-satellite weapon test a while back was a big deal.
We try to track everything, especially everything above a certain size, so we can prevent collissions.
There's slightly more than a stub on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Real lawyers write in C++
First, the Earth would have to be spinning and moving. Can you get a gyroscope to move? Have you ever seen a hard drive move just from spinning?
If Earth really spun, and we just don't feel it, we'd be completely dizzy everytime we took an airplane flight to another latitude, particularly if it was from the equator to the poles.
Space is fake. The Earth is flat. The eclipses prove it.
If you really want to experiment with gravity, look up the Allais Effect, and then design an experiment for the next solar eclipse. In the meantime, you can try to get a gyroscope to show rotation of the Earth.
Space is fake. Earth is flat. The eclipses prove it.
Solar Eclipse: https://vimeo.com/230976895
Corona not shaped in a spherical configuration; orients toward Earth. Corona lines can be observed to move faster than the speed of light. Light of the corona can be observed on the back of the moon. Light of the chromosphere can be observed on the back of the moon. Light of protuberences can be observed on the back of the moon. Sun and Moon same size and near.
Lunar Eclipse: https://vimeo.com/92378881
Irregular shadow shape, progression. Shadow is black, then changes color to reddish: Shadows don't change color. Moon glow of uneclipsed portion increases as shadow becomes reddish, detail lost. Moon has no rotation(see Nikola Tesla): we always see the same face. Moon emits own light. Craters not from impacts: Too round.
Next lunar eclipse: January 30/31, 2018 North America
What's heavier? 375 pounds of shit, or creimer?
If you really want to experiment with gravity, look up the Allais Effect, and then design an experiment for the next solar eclipse. In the meantime, you can try to get a gyroscope to show rotation of the Earth.
Space is fake. Earth is flat. The eclipses prove it.
This Flat Earth stuff is getting totally ridiculous. What does it mean space is fake? Let's not even dwell on the Earth is flat part. Let's just focus on the "space is fake" one. Are we living in a bi-dimensional world? Are Mars and the other planets fake? Even the Flat Earth Society recently replied to Elon Musk saying "Mars has been observed to be round." So where is Mars, if not in space?
I know you're just a troll, but come on, troll properly. The rest of your comment is equally dumb. "Sun and Moon same size and near"? "Moon has no rotation"? Can you even grasp basic concepts at all? Are you using speech to text because you never learned how to type?
Wake up folks the earth is not a globe!
That they may be identical suggests they are the exact same phenomenon, which is cooler than everything else put together.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You can lookup Nikola Tesla's analysis of the moons rotation and argue with him. (It has none)
Sun and moon are same size and near, because that is the only way the sun can be behind the moon, and still manage to project the light of it's corona and protuberances onto the back side that we see here on Earth during a solar eclipse.
The "Flat Earth Society" is not a flat Earth group. They are run by the round Earthers. This is obvious from their ridiculous statement that gravity is the Earth accelerating upwards. The Earth does not move. Michelson-Morley showed this.
Space is fake. The heavens are real. The concept of space that exists in your head, and shapes every thought about the nature of the universe, is not real. The heavens are up there above us and they are real. If 'space' was real, they wouldn't have needed to invent dark matter and dark energy to explain why their equations for gravity don't model the way it is.
It is a lot to swallow. Start with the eclipses or get a gyroscope to show you rotation of the Earth.
This is what we pay taxes for.
Gravity is just a theory, therefore another liberal lie.
Things don't fall down! How does an airplane stay in the sky you fools?!
Use common sense instead of science.
Or you could just go flush a toilet on the opposite side of the planet...
One other thing may help. Very smart men like Tycho Brahe looked up and saw the Earth at the center. This is because of the mathematical reality that whether the curve is on the surface of the Earth, or in the heavens, the view of the observer on Earth is the same. Just like Eratosthenes experiment can be applied in a flat model or a round model. Kepler worked on the very same observations in the same observatory, but used them to calculate elliptical orbits to make Copernicus' round Earth model better fit the observations.
If the Earth was a spinning sphere, the evidence would be everywhere you look. For some strange reason, it isn't there. They give you 'ships over the curve', which is false. And they give you the lunar eclipse, which if you watch it, can't be explained by their model. For the solar eclipse, they simply pretend not to see the light, which until recent times, were very difficult for a man to record, and impossible for him to share.
Not sure if you are serious, but Coriolis Effect is no longer claimed to cause swirl in draining water. Because whatever it is caused by (or isn't), it isn't the rotation of the Earth.
If the Earth makes my toilet spin, it could certainly make my gyroscope move. Or my hard drive.
As our recent flat earth coward knows that all gyroscopes are rigidly fixed in space (he says so!). This is why no one with a laptop with a harddrive (or an iPod) has ever been able to tilt it in operation! Mystery solved!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
A gyroscope is rigidly fixed in space unless forced to change orientation. The purpose of the gymbals is to provide it the ability to rotate the gymbals instead of the rotor. The effect is that a gyroscope should appear to 'move' relative to the floor, desk, or the Earth, if the Earth is moving.
A hard drive will resist rotation as well, if you have ever held one while it is spinning. Like a gyroscope, a hard drive that isn't fixed in place by surface friction or bolts should tend to 'crawl' or move about as it resists the rotation of the Earth. This would be separate from the potential movements caused by head seeking.
A Leibert flywheel UPS would do the same thing, but should be especially forceful, considering the spinning rotor is storing enough electricity to power data center equipment until generators start up.
And as I said below, if the spinning Earth used to be powerful enough to spin my toilet water, why not anything else. (They no longer claim Coriolis effect turns toilet water)
”Most stories around space today seem to revolve around SpaceX, but let's not forget that space is also a place for cool physics experiments.”
Well, if the sum total of your science reading amounts to scanning Slashdot headlines, perhaps this is true. But then you probably also believe that the vast majority of financial news stories involve Bitcoin.
Otherwise... no. There’s a lot of very cool real space science going on right now! Meanwhile Musk is essentially running an innovative delivery service.
#DeleteChrome
The flat earth truthers are very confident the earth is flat and gravity doesn't exist, how can this be true??
Serious question - does anyone reading believe the earth is flat?
This story is too complicated for me. Can't we get back to stories about global warming? Those stories are the ones I like because they make everything so simple. Science stories are too complicated.
Einstein? Ouch!
I can't seem to find anything explaining how the test works. Is it just measuring forces on balls with different densities or something?
Exactly right. It's an oblate spheroid.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I know you're just a troll, but come on, troll properly.
This has been the MO of various trolls on Slashdot science topics for ages. They just copy past the exact same post over and over again, with maybe one sentence that gets tweaked each time. Doesn't matter that every other time they get a bunch of replies showing how wrong stuff is. They just keep saying, "But no one has ever answered this question," or, "No one ever talks about foo or bar," regardless of how many people have answered those questions or talked about such things.
It amounts to very lazy trolling, but it works almost every time. Some trolls do it for pride and sense of power over others, others just do it for a quick fix like some disheveled drug addict. At least APK put more effort into things by rewriting. Even most pseudoscientists have better things to do than copy paste the same thing over and over again on a message board without reading replies.
well?