14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) it will build will be called Albert Einstein, in honor of the most renowned scientist ever.
The ATV is an unmanned space capsule, which the agency uses to deliver tons of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), as part of its commitment to the international endeavor.
The first ATV was called Jules Verne, while the second received the name Johannes Kepler, after the famous astronomer. The third capsule was called Edoardo Amaldi, after Enrico Fermi's disciple who pioneered the search for gravitational waves in Europe.
Now, ESA decided to honor the world's foremost scientist by naming the fourth ATV after him. At this time, launch of the new space vehicle is scheduled to occur sometime in early 2013.
Experts with the agency say that the ATV are named after Europe's most renowned scientist in order to underline the tight connection that the Old Continent has with science, technology, culture and space exploration. Most of the world's most famous astronomers came from Europe.
Naming ATV-4 Albert Einstein was a proposal made by the Swiss delegation to ESA. The delegates argued that the scientist single-handedly changed our perception of the Universe we live in.
The physicist was most renowned for his Theory of General Relativity, and for the famous formula E-mc2. The theories he proposed more than 90 years ago are still true to this day, after having been thoroughly tested both on Earth and in space.
The Swiss delegation made this proposal because Switzerland is the place where the ATV basic structures are being constructed. It is also the country where Einstein spent the early part of his career, and where he carried out his studies. The physicist was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879.
While working at a patent office in the Swiss capital Bern, he developed most of his theories. In 1905, his fundamental papers on the photoelectric effect, the Brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy blew the scientific community apart.
After continuing his academic careers at universities in Zürich, Prague, Berlin, Einstein finally fled Germany before World War II, and finally made his way to Princeton University, in the US.
The international scientific community recognized his achievements with a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. Einstein passed away at the aged of 76 in the United States. He died in 1955.
His memory is honored by numerous scientific instruments around the world, including particle detectors, telescopes, and now finally the fourth ESA ATV.