Testing General Relativity with Juno at Jupiter

Abstract

The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 July to deepen our comprehension of the solar system by studying the gas giant. The radio science experiment enables the determination of Jupiter’s gravitational field, thus shedding light on its interior structure. The experiment relies on determining the orbit of the spacecraft during its pericenter passages. Previous gravity data analyses assumed the correctness of the general theory of relativity, which was used for trajectory integration and radio signal propagation modeling. In this work, we aim to test general relativity within the unique context of a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter, by employing the parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism, an established framework for comparing various gravitational theories. Within this framework, we focus our attention toward the PPN parameters γ and β, which offer insights into the curvature of spacetime and the nonlinearity of gravitational effects, respectively. Additionally, we extend our investigation to the Lense–Thirring effect, which models the dragging of spacetime induced by a rotating mass. By measuring the relativistic frequency shift on Doppler observables caused by Jupiter during Juno’s perijove passes, we estimate γ = 1 + (1.5 ± 4.9) × 10−3, consistent with the general theory of relativity. Our estimated γ is primarily influenced by its effect on light-time computation, with a negligible contribution from spacecraft dynamics. Furthermore, we also present a modest level of accuracy for the β parameter, reflecting the minimal dynamical perturbation on Juno from general relativity. This also applies to the Lense–Thirring effect, whose signal is too small to be confidently resolved.