EARTH WARPS THE FABRIC OF SPACE
According to an article by a writer for the website of SPACE named Robert Roy Britt, a recent study confirms a key principle of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The following information was gleaned from Britt’s article. Earth’s spin has been proven to warp space around the planet. Researchers have watched the movements of two Earth-orbiting satellites to determine whether they shift any in response to spinning Earth for over 11 years. They have determined that each is dragged by about 6 feet every year. This means that the spinning Earth twists the space around it. The results of this study were announced on October 20, 2004.
The twisting of space is called frame dragging. Frame dragging was predicted in 1918 and it means that an object with mass warps the space-time around it. This is comparable to the way a heavy object deforms a stretched elastic sheet. The spinning of Earth distorts space in the way that a wheel spinning on a sheet would distort the sheet.
If Earth is causing this frame-dragging, the satellites would be affected, scientists believed. They hit two satellites with millions of laser signals to ascertain the position of the satellites. These satellites look like golf balls two feet in diameter, and are designed to do absolutely nothing but orbit the planet. The scientists report that the amount the satellites have moved is 99% the amount they predicted. According to physicist Neil Ashby this study is “the first reasonably accurate measurement of frame-dragging.” These results can be applied to theories about black holes. Frame-dragging was predicted by Einstein but it was actually discovered through observing a black hole. In 1997 researchers discovered that the movements of gas spiraling into a black hole were wobbled like a spinning top wobbles. Scientists have also discovered that black holes do spin and that frame-dragging is a main cause of the way black holes cause huge jets of material to be spewed away from the area around a black hole.