MEASUREMENT OF GRAVITOMAGNETISM

Gravitomagnetism is a fundamental, weak-field, prediction of Einstein' s theory of general relativity, is generated by currents of mass and o wes its name to its formal analogies with magnetism, generated by curr ents of electric charge. Then, according to general relativity, Earth' s spin should influence the motion of its orbiting satellites. Indeed, we analysed the laser ranging observations of the orbits of the satel lites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II and obtained the first direct measurement o f the gravitomagnetic orbital perturbation due to the Earth's spin, kn own as the Lense-Thirring effect.