A confirmation of the general relativistic prediction of the Lense–Thirring effect

An important early prediction of Einstein's general relativity1,2,3 was the advance of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit, whose measurement provided one of the classical tests of Einstein's theory4. The advance of the orbital point-of-closest-approach also applies to a binary pulsar system5,6 and to an Earth-orbiting satellite3. General relativity also predicts that the rotation of a body like Earth will drag the local inertial frames of reference around it3,7, which will affect the orbit of a satellite8. This Lense–Thirring effect has hitherto not been detected with high accuracy9, but its detection with an error of about 1 per cent is the main goal of Gravity Probe B—an ongoing space mission using orbiting gyroscopes10. Here we report a measurement of the Lense–Thirring effect on two Earth satellites: it is 99 ± 5 per cent of the value predicted by general relativity; the uncertainty of this measurement includes all known random and systematic errors, but we allow for a total ± 10 per cent uncertainty to include underestimated and unknown sources of error.