The Obscure Precession of Mercury's Perihelion
| Scientific Paper | |
|---|---|
| Title | The Obscure Precession of Mercury's Perihelion |
| Read in full | Link to paper |
| Author(s) | Richard Wayte |
| Keywords | perihelion, precession, Mercury, General Relativity, solar system |
| Published | 2011 |
| Journal | Vixra |
| No. of pages | 8 |
Read the full paper here
Abstract
The Sun's orbital motion around the Solar System barycentre contributes a small quadrupole moment to the gravitational binding energy of Mercury. This moment has until now gone undiscovered, but it actually generates 7arcsec/cy precession of Mercury's perihelion. Consequently, the residual 43arcsec/cy allocated previously to general relativity must in reality account for this new component and only 36arcsec/cy for general relativity. This means that the orbit of Mercury is grossly incompatible with the vacuum solution of GR.