Lisa Pathfinder launch (Tonight at 04.04GMT)

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European Mission Lifting off from S America on a Vega Rocket. It's purpose is to test the Tech needed to detect Einsteins 100yo predicted Gravitational Waves, the warping of space-time produced by Supernova/Merging Black Holes.



More Info

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ5Se7a5Ofk

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The Fun and Games have started for this today with the release of both of its gold–platinum cubes,

a pair of identical 46 mm gold–platinum cubes – in the heart of the spacecraft are floating freely, several millimetres from the walls of their housings. The cubes sit 38 cm apart linked only by laser beams. It'll be the 23th before full science Mode begins though.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Test_cubes_floating_freely_inside_LISA_Pathfinder

Throughout LISA Pathfinder’s ground handling, launch, the burns that raised its orbit, and the six-week cruise to its work site, each cube was held firmly in place by eight ‘fingers’ pressing on its corners.

On 3 February, the locking fingers were retracted and a valve was opened to allow any residual gas molecules around the cubes to vent to space.

Each cube remained in the centre of its housing held by a pair of rods softly pushing on two opposite sides.

The rods were finally released from one test mass yesterday and from the other today, leaving the cubes floating freely, with no mechanical contact with the spacecraft.

“This is why we sent the test cubes into space: to recreate conditions that are impossible to achieve in the gravitational field of our planet,” says Paul McNamara, ESA’s project scientist.

“Only under these conditions is it possible to test freefall in the purest achievable form. We can’t wait to start running experiments with this amazing gravity laboratory.”

It will be another week before the cubes are left completely at the mercy of gravity, with no other forces acting on them. Before then, minute electrostatic forces are being applied to move them around and make them follow the spacecraft as its flight through space is slightly perturbed by outside forces such as pressure from sunlight.

On 23 February, the team will switch LISA Pathfinder to science mode for the first time, and the opposite will become true: the cubes will be in freefall and the spacecraft will start sensing any motions towards them owing to external forces. Microthrusters will make minuscule shifts in order to keep the craft centred on one mass.

Then the scientists will be in a position to run several months of experiments to determine how accurately the two freely-flying test masses can be kept positioned relative to each other, making measurements with the laser that links them.

Roughly speaking, the required accuracy is on the order of a millionth of a millionth of a metre.

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Einsteins Relativity is going down.

A five-dimensional black hole could 'break' general relativity, say physicists

http://www.sciencealert.com/a-five-dimensional-black-hole-could-break-general-relativity-say-physicists


Only a matter of time and a singularity not bound by an Event Horizon.

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Ands its going. Be a terror if they get a hit straight away like ligo.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35689814

Capt'n Midnight

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Ands its going. Be a terror if they get a hit straight away like ligo.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35689814

A Lisa-like mission might have detected Ligo's coalescing black holes four years ago

Really need three or better still four satellites so we can detect the directions of these waves, unless we can use ones on earth too but they won't be as sensitive

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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Really need three or better still four satellites so we can detect the directions of these waves, unless we can use ones on earth too but they won't be as sensitive

3 more planned due to how well LISA works.

http://m.voanews.com/a/lisa-pathfinder-gravitational-waves/3375222.html


And LIGO has picked up another wave.

http://news.mit.edu/2016/second-time-ligo-detects-gravitational-waves-0615