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Test of general relativity and measurement of the lense-thirring effect with two earth satellites
1I. Ciufolini, Istituto Fisica Spazio Interplanetario-Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, and Dipartimento Aerospaziale, Universita di Roma "La Sapienza," via Eudossiana 16, 00184 Rome, Italy. E. Pavlis, Joint Center for Earth System Technolo.
Abstract:
The Lense-Thirring effect, a tiny perturbation of the orbit of a particle caused by the spin of the attracting body, was accurately measured with the use of the data of two laser-ranged satellites, LAGEOS and LAGEOS II, and the Earth gravitational model EGM-96. The parameter &mgr;, which measures the strength of the Lense-Thirring effect, was found to be 1.1 +/- 0.2; general relativity predicts &mgr; identical with 1. This result represents an accurate test and measurement of one of the fundamental predictions of general relativity, that the spin of a body changes the geometry of the universe by generating space-time curvature.