LARES measures frame-dragging

It is a singular coincidence that accurate experimental confirmations of some of the most arcane phenomena predicted by Einstein’s General Relativity have come 100 years after the final formulation of Einstein's theory. The direct observation of gravitational waves with the two LIGO laser interferometers opened the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. The observation captured the spectacular collision of two black holes forming, as predicted by General Relativity, a single rotating black hole with an enormous release of energy in the form of gravitational waves. Another intriguing phenomenon is "frame-dragging", a term coined by Einstein himself in a 1913 letter to Ernst Mach, the physicist and philosopher who, with his ideas on the origin of inertia, had in part inspired the development of General Relativity. Today frame-dragging has been measured to an unprecedented accuracy of a few percent, thanks to the Italian Space Agency satellite LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite). LARES was launched into orbit on 13 February 2012 with exceptional precision on the qualification flight of the European Space Agency’s VEGA launcher mainly developed by AVIO and ELV of Colleferro. The research team, led by the universities of Salento, Sapienza and by Centro Fermi in Rome, included the universities of Maryland, of Texas at Austin and of Oxford and the research centers Helmholtz of Potsdam and Alikhanian of Yerevan.