Related papers: Mars and frame-dragging: study for a dedicated mis…

The POLAR Investigation of the Sun (POLARIS) mission uses a combination of a gravity assist and solar sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a 0.48 AU circular orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 75 degrees with respect to solar…

We propose the use of modulated spectra of astronomical sources due to gravitational lensing to probe Ellis wormholes. The modulation factor due to gravitational lensing by the Ellis wormhole is calculated. Within the geometrical optics…

Observational data from the ESA astrometric mission Gaia determining the positions of celestial objects within an accuracy of few microarcseconds will be soon fully available. Other satellite-based space missions are currently planned to…

The photometric properties of the surface of Mars describe how remote measurements of surface reflectance can be linked to hemispherical albedo used for energy balance calculations. A simple Lambert model is frequently assumed for global…

This paper is motivated by the recent possibility to find an inexpensive launching vehicle for the LARES satellite, however at an altitude much lower than originally planned for the LAGEOS III/LARES satellite. We present here a preliminary…

With quantitative numerical simulations we show that the secular variations of the even zonal harmonics of the geopotential do affect the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with the nodes of LAGEOS and LAGEOS II at a \sim 14% level.…

Processing the data of lunar laser ranging (LLR) points to the effect of anomalous increase in the lunar semimajor axis (with an excessive rate about 1.3 cm/yr), which cannot be attributed to the well-known tidal exchange of angular…

Recent results of the LARASE research program in terms of models improvements and relativistic measurements are presented. In particular, the results regarding the development of new models for the non-gravitational perturbations that…

We comment on a recent study reporting evidence for the general relativistic Lense-Thirring secular precession of the inclination $I$ of the orbital plane to the plane of the sky of the tight binary system PSR J1141-6545 made of a white…

An extremely sensitive all-sky survey will be carried out in the millimetre/submillimetre waveband by the forthcoming ESA mission Planck Surveyor. The main scientific goal of the mission is to make very accurate measurements of the spatial…

If a gravitational microlensing event is caused by a widely separated binary lens and the source approaches both lens components, the source flux is successively magnified by the individual lenses: double microlensing events. If events are…

LaRa (Lander Radioscience) is an experiment on the ExoMars 2020 mission that uses the Doppler shift on the radio link due to the motion of the ExoMars platform tied to the surface of Mars with respect to the Earth ground stations (e.g. the…

Large scale square ring laser gyros with a length of four meters on each side are approaching a sensitivity of 1x10^-11 rad/s/sqrt(Hz). This is about the regime required to measure the gravitomagnetic effect (Lense Thirring) of the Earth.…

Please note that this abstract has been shortened from that found in the paper. A brief history is given of the development of the correction for observation selection bias inherent in the calibration of absolute magnitudes using…

In this note we reply to the criticisms by Felici concerning some aspects of the recent frame-dragging test performed by Iorio with the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft in the gravitational field of Mars.

For microlensing case angular distances between images or typical astrometric shifts due to microlensing are about $10^{-5}-10^{-6} \mu as$. Such an angular resolution will be reached with the space space--ground interferometer Radioastron.…

The time delay between images of strongly gravitationally lensed quasars is an established cosmological probe. Its limitations, however, include uncertainties in the assumed mass distribution of the lens. We re-examine the methodology of a…

Gravitational lensing is a powerful probe of cosmology and astrophysics. With the prospect of the first strongly lensed gravitational waves on the horizon, we highlight an opportunity to test fundamental physics. In this work, we assume a…

Accurate weak-lensing analysis requires not only accurate measurement of galaxy shapes but also precise and unbiased measurement of galaxy redshifts. The photometric redshift technique appears as the only possibility to determine the…

We study the impact of relativistic gravitational deflection of light on the accuracy of future Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). We estimate the deflection angles caused by the monopole, quadrupole and octupole components of…