Detection of Lense-Thirring Effect Due to Earth's Spin

Abstract

Rotation of a body, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, generates a "force" on other matter; in Newton's gravitational theory only the mass of a body produces a force. This phenomenon, due to currents of mass, is known as gravitomagnetism owing to its formal analogies with magnetism due to currents of electric charge. Therefore, according to general relativity, Earth's rotation should influence the motion of its orbiting satellites. Indeed, we analysed the laser ranging observations of the orbits of the satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II, using a program developed at NASA/GSFC, and obtained the first direct measurement of the gravitomagnetic orbital perturbation due to the Earth's rotation, known as the Lense-Thirring effect. The accuracy of our measurement is about 25%.