Story perspectives

Einstein Frame-Dragging Verified to 0.1% via LARES-2

7/16/2026

Summary

Gurzadyan Confirms Frame-Dragging

Professor Vahagn Gurzadyan and an international team published a Nature paper confirming Einstein’s frame-dragging prediction to one part in a thousand.
The measurement combined data from the 2022 LARES-2 satellite with earlier LAGEOS and GRACE observations.
LARES-2’s low surface-to-mass ratio, optimized orbit and uniform retroreflectors enabled the precision.
The findings tighten constraints on scalar-tensor and Chern-Simons gravity models and improve Earth’s lunisolar tide and gravity field estimates.

Summary

Lense-Thirring Evolution

The 1918 Lense-Thirring article first quantified how a rotating mass drags nearby orbital paths.
Will and Nordtvedt’s 1971-1973 papers established the parametrized post-Newtonian framework and excluded preferred-frame theories.
Sosnica and Galdyn’s 2025 research added Earth’s oblateness to relativistic orbital corrections, updating satellite models.
Kopeikin et al. (2014), Ciufolini & Wheeler (1995), and Will’s 2018 textbook document interdisciplinary growth and synthesis of experimental tests.

History

Historical Context

In 1976 NASA placed the passive LAGEOS satellite to test Einstein’s frame-dragging prediction. The program expanded when the Italian Space Agency partnered with NASA to launch LAGEOS-2 in October 1992 and later its own LARES series, with LARES-1 in 2012 and LARES-2 in 2022. Together these missions, now combined with GRACE data, achieve sub-0.1 % precision, tightening constraints on alternative gravity theories.

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Gurzadyan Confirms Frame-Dragging

Professor Vahagn Gurzadyan and an international team published a Nature paper confirming Einstein’s frame-dragging prediction to one part in a thousand.
The measurement combined data from the 2022 LARES-2 satellite with earlier LAGEOS and GRACE observations.
LARES-2’s low surface-to-mass ratio, optimized orbit and uniform retroreflectors enabled the precision.
The findings tighten constraints on scalar-tensor and Chern-Simons gravity models and improve Earth’s lunisolar tide and gravity field estimates.

1 / 3