Satellite launched to probe space-time
探测时-空间卫星发射升空

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 Posted: 1756 GMT (0156 HKT)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- Forty-five years in the making and 24 hours late, NASA launched a $700 million satellite into orbit on Tuesday to test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.
佛罗里达州， 卡纳维拉尔海角----历经45年蕴酿，以及推迟24小时后，NASA于周二将一颗耗资70亿美元的卫星成功发射进入运行轨道，该卫星将用来验证爱因斯坦广义相对论。

☆ NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration 国家航空和宇宙航行局
orbit 轨道

The Gravity Probe B, one of the most precise scientific instruments every built, was carried aloft by a Boeing Co. Delta 2 at 12:57 p.m. EDT from the rocket range at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.
“引力探测器B”，已建造最精密的科研仪器之一，在加州的Vandenberg 空军基地火箭发射场于美国东区时间下午12：45载波音公司Delta 2型火箭发射升空。

☆ gravity 地心引力, 重力
aloft 往高处

A day earlier, launch directors from Boeing and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida scrubbed the launch in the final minutes of the countdown when there was a problem loading software.
一天前，来自波音和NASA肯尼迪航天中心的发射总指挥在读秒的最后一刻终止了火箭的发射，原因是在加载软件的过程中出现了一个问题。

☆ scrub 取消，刷洗，擦洗
countdown 倒数计秒，读秒

Einstein developed his mind-bending theories of relativity in the early 20th century, and today those theories are generally accepted, especially as they find their way into applications such as medical scanners and the Global Positioning System.
二十世纪初，爱因斯坦创建了他极为高深的相对论理论。今天，该理论已经被人们广泛接受，尤其是在广泛应用于诸如医疗扫描仪器及全球定位系统后。

☆ mind-bending 使神经混乱的极度影响大脑的，尤指导致幻觉的，在此指高深的。
scanner 扫描器

Among the most exotic of Einstein's predictions was that massive bodies -- planets, stars or black holes -- actually twist time and space around as they spin, much like the winds of a tornado.
根据爱因斯坦理论预言，在遥远的外太空，行星、恒星或黑洞等大质量物体，在自转的同时，会造成周围时间和空间的扭曲，产生龙卷风一样的效果。

☆ exotic 外太空
twist 扭曲
tornado 龙卷风

Other tenets of general relativity have been tested, such as the warping of time and space by massive bodies, but the twisting effect, known as frame dragging, has never been put to the test, project scientists said.

If Einstein is right, scientists say, the satellite should detect that small bits of time and space are actually missing from each orbit, something indiscernible to orbiting astronauts but measurable nonetheless.

"I call it the missing inch," said the program's chief scientist, Francis Everitt, a theoretical physicist from Stanford University, where the mission was first conceived in 1959, then funded in 1964. Not until the 1990s were engineers from Stanford and NASA able to build a satellite precise enough to make the measurement.

The heart of the 3.5-tonne satellite is a container holding four spheres the size of ping pong balls that will be chilled to near absolute zero and spun 10,000 times a minute, making them the most accurate gyroscopes ever built.

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