Instantaneous Relativistic Precession of Mercury

Abstract

The extra precession of Mercury—42.9 seconds of arc per century—explained by General Relativity (GR), is the result of a secular addition of 5.02 × 10 −7 rad. at the end of every orbit around the Sun. We will analyze the instantaneous precession and its addition along one orbit, find out the magnitude of oscillations over the mean value, comparing key theoretical proposals. This angular instantaneous precession should be the result reaction of Mercury to the gravitoelectric/magnetic action produced by the geometric curve space-time at each single point of the elliptic orbit. The better we should know about this precession, the better we will determine the external action whatever the perturbing source is. The Doppler tracking of the MESSENGER spacecraft produces only 1 m error, enough precision to deduce the complete geodesic orbit of Mercury as an open free-fall path, isolated from other planets gravitational interference. The aim of this article is also to encourage JPL, IMCCE and other scientific teams to do so because, as far as I know, it has not been yet entirely measured by accurately tracking that motion.