Related papers: The Lense-Thirring effect and the Pioneer anomaly:…
According to general relativity, a spinning body of mass M and angular momentum S, like a star or a planet, generates a gravitomagnetic field which induces, among other phenomena, also the Lense-Thirring effect, i.e. secular precessions of…
Testing the effects predicted by the General Theory of Relativity, in its linearized weak field and slow motion approximation, in the Solar System is difficult because they are very small. Among them the post-Newtonian gravitomagnetic…
Recent years have seen increasing efforts to directly measure some aspects of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic interaction in several astronomical scenarios in the solar system. After briefly overviewing the concept of…
Here we explore the possibility of extending to the Solar System scenario the combined residual approach employed for the deterination of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Earth-LAGEOS satellites system. After calculating the secular…
In this brief note we reply to the authors of a recent preprint in which an alleged explicit proposal of using the mean anomaly of the LAGEOS satellites to measure the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of…
Here we explore a novel approach in order to try to measure the post-Newtonian 1/c^2 Lense-Thirring secular effect induced by the gravitomagnetic field of the Sun on the planetary orbital motion. Due to the relative smallness of the solar…
We show here that the recent claim of a test of the Lense-Thirring effect with an error of 0.5% using the Mars Global Surveyor is misleading and the quoted error is incorrect by a factor of at least ten thousand. Indeed, the simple error…
In order to satisfy the equivalence principle, any non-conventional mechanism proposed to gravitationally explain the Pioneer anomaly, in the form in which it is presently known from the so-far analyzed Pioneer 10/11 data, cannot leave out…
In this paper we test the hypothesis that the Pioneer anomaly can be of gravitational origin by comparing the predicted model-independent shifts Delta a/a for the semimajor axis of Uranus and Neptune with the Voyager 2 radio-technical…
I discuss some aspects of the recent test of frame-dragging performed by me by exploiting the Root-Mean-Square (RMS) orbit overlap differences of the out-of-plane component N of the orbit of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft in the…
The Doppler-tracking data of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft show an unmodelled constant acceleration in the direction of the inner Solar System. An overview of the phenomenon, commonly dubbed the Pioneer anomaly, is given and the…
The twin Pioneer spacecraft have been tracked for over thirty years as they headed out of the solar system. After passing 20 AU from the Sun, both exhibited a systematic error in their trajectories that can be interpreted as a constant…
We present a new measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect on the orbits of the geodetic satellites LAGEOS, LAGEOS II and LARES. This secular precession is a general relativity effect produced by the gravitomagnetic field of the Earth…
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…
Let two test particles A and B revolving about a spinning primary along ideally identical orbits in opposite directions be considered. From the general expressions of the precessions of the orbital inclination induced by the post-Newtonian…
In this paper we will show in detail that the performed attempts aimed at the detection of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of the Earth with the existing LAGEOS satellites are often presented in an…
If the Pioneer anomaly has a gravitational origin, it would, according to the equivalence principle, distort the motions of the planets in the Solar System. Since no anomalous motion of the planets has been detected, it is generally…
Among the effects predicted by the General Theory of Relativity for the orbital motion of a test particle, the post-Newtonian gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect is very interesting and, up to now, there is not yet an undisputable…
The predicted Lense-Thirring perihelion precession of Mercury induced by the Sun's angular momentum through its general relativistic gravitomagnetic field amounts to 2 milliarcseconds per century. It turned out to be compatible with the…
After an introduction on phenomena due to spin and mass-energy currents on clocks and photons, we review the 1995-2001 measurements of the gravitomagnetic field of Earth and Lense-Thirring effect obtained by analyzing the orbits of the two…