Relativistic perihelion precession of orbits of Venus and the Earth

• Authors: Abhijit Biswas , Krishnan Mani
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Among all the theories proposed to explain the “anomalous” perihelion precession of Mercury’s orbit first announced in 1859 by Le Verrier, the general theory of relativity proposed by Einstein in November 1915 alone could calculate Mercury’s “anomalous” precession with the precision demanded by observational accuracy. Since Mercury’s precession was a directly derived result of the full general theory, it was viewed by Einstein as the most critical test of general relativity from amongst the three tests he proposed. With the advent of the space age, the level of observational accuracy has improved further and it is now possible to detect this precession for other planetary orbits of the solar system - viz., Venus and the Earth. This conclusively proved that the phenomenon of “anomalous” perihelion precession of planetary orbits is a relativistic effect. Our previous papers presented the mathematical model and the computed value of the relativistic perihelion precession of Mercury’s orbit using an alternate relativistic gravitational model, which is a remodeled form of Einstein’s relativity theories, and which retained only experimentally proven principles. In addition this model has the benefit of data from almost a century of relativity experimentation, including those that have become possible with the advent of the space age. Using this model, we present in this paper the computed values of the relativistic precession of Venus and the Earth, which compare well with the predictions of general relativity and are also in agreement with the observed values within the range of uncertainty.

Keywords

EN

perihelion precession; relativistic precession; Venus; Earth; numerical relativity; relativity theory

Discipline

• 04.25.D-: Numerical relativity
• 04.50.Kd: Modified theories of gravity
• 03.30.+p: Special relativity
• 45.50.Pk: Celestial mechanics(see also 95.10.Ce in fundamental astronomy)

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: Open Physics
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 754-758

Dates

published

1 - 9 - 2008

online

17 - 7 - 2008

Contributors

author

Abhijit Biswas

• Department of Physics, Godopy Center for Scientific Research, Calcutta, 700 008, India

author

Krishnan Mani

• Department of Physics, Godopy Center for Scientific Research, Calcutta, 700 008, India

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s11534-008-0081-6