General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, abstract
gr-qc/0606092

From: Lorenzo Iorio [view email]

Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:33:10 GMT (11kb)

Evidence of the gravitomagnetic field of Mars

Authors: Lorenzo Iorio

Comments: Latex, 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity

According to general relativity, the gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring force of Mars would secularly shift the orbital plane of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft by an amount of 1.5 m, on average, in the cross-track direction over 5 years. The determined cross-track post-fit residuals of MGS, built up by neglecting just the gravitomagnetic force in the dynamical force models and without fitting any empirical cross-track acceleration which could remove the relativistic signal, amount to 1.6 m, on average, over a 5-years time interval spanning from 10 February 2000 to 14 January 2005. The discrepancy with the predictions of general relativity is 6%.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0606092