Michele's wiki/blog

Authors: Lorenzo Iorio

Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007

Abstract: In this letter we accurately measure the general relativistic gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect by analyzing the post-fit residuals of the out-of-plane portion of the orbit of the Martian polar orbiter Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) over a time span of about 5 years (14 November 1999-14 January 2005). Our result is \mu= 0.9937 +/- 0.0053; general relativity predicts \mu=1. A previous test of the Lense-Thirring effect conducted in the Earth's gravitational field with the LAGEOS satellites reached an about 10% level, although it is still controversial. The expected accuracy of the GP-B mission, aimed at the detection of another gravitomagnetic effect in the terrestrial gravitational field, i.e. the Schiff precession of a gyroscope, is about 1%. The precision of our test is 0.5$%.

abs pdf