Overview

• Researchers from the Technical University of Munich and the University of Bonn report a 250-day continuous run of a high-precision instrument housed at the Geodetic Observatory in Wettzell, Bavaria.
• The device directly resolved precession and nutation of Earth’s axis with updates in less than an hour, producing immediate results rather than day-scale outputs.
• Measured performance is about 100 times more accurate than previous ring lasers or gyroscopes, operating as a fully inertial sensor independent of external signals.
• The study, published in Science Advances, demonstrates a practical alternative to VLBI for many Earth-orientation measurements.
• The team says improving accuracy and stability by roughly another factor of ten could enable direct surface tests of relativistic frame-dragging such as the Lense–Thirring effect.