A space probe designed for the detection of gravity waves in space-time, forecasted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, a century back, has been launched into orbit successfully. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Pathfinder spacecraft has been launched from Kourou in French Guiana just a day after the 100th anniversary of Einstein's groundbreaking theory was published.

Scientists were looking forward to launch it on the anniversary date that is December 2, but some technical issueswith the Vega launch rocket led to a day's delay. Scientists didn’t seem bothered by the better-safe-than-sorry decision.
Paul McNamara, a team member on the ESA project, said, “We've waited 100 years for the anniversary of Einstein's equations. What's one more day?”

On reaching orbit, 2 gold-platinum cubes will be set free into free-fall within the space probe, where they will be separated from all outside forces except for gravity.

Researchers will measure their position relative to one another with tremendous sensitivity, getting a chance to detect gravitational waves, small ripples in space-time, which as per Einstein must spread outward as huge objects like the interaction between neutron stars and supermassive black holes or neutron stars.

Gravitational waves have always remained an elusive query and haven’t been directly detected so far, despite years of studies and experiments.

ESA scientists explained that a number of thruster burns in the coming 2 weeks are going to push Pathfinder toward its operations orbit, a position where it needs to reach in nearly 10 weeks.