Scientists tested Galileo and Einstein’s theories by dropping two objects inside this satellite named MICROSCOPE (artist’s impression).
(Image: © CNES)
In the th century, famed astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei is said to have climbed to the top of the Tower of Pisa and dropped two different-sized cannonballs. He was trying to demonstrate his theory – which Albert Einstein later updated and added to his (theory of relativity ) – that objects fall at the same rate regardless of their size. Now, after spending two years dropping two objects of different mass into a free fall in a satellite, a group of scientists has connected that Galileo and Einstein were right: The objects fell at a rate that was within two -trillionths of a percent of each other, according to a new study.
That’s because there are still inconsistencies in scientists’ understanding of the universe .
“So, if we live in a world where there’s dark matter around that we can’t see, that might have an influence on the motion of [objects],” Wolf said. That influence would be “a very tiny one,” but it would be there nonetheless. So, if scientists see test objects fall at different rates, that “might be an indication that we’re actually looking at the effect of dark matter,” he added.
Wolf and an international group of researchers – including scientists from France’s National Center for Space Studies and the European Space Agency – set out to test Einstein and Galileo’s foundational idea that no matter where you do an experiment, no matter how you orient it and what velocity you’re moving at through space, the objects will fall at the same rate.
The researchers put two cylindrical objects – one made of titanium. and the other platinum – inside each other and loaded them onto a satellite. The orbiting satellite was naturally “falling” because there were no forces acting on it, Wolf said. They suspended the cylinders within an electromagnetic field and dropped the objects for (to) (hours at a time.)
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