The geodetic effect represents the effect of the curvature of spacetime, predicted by general relativity, on a spinning, moving body. A related effect was first predicted by Willem de Sitter in 1916, who provided relativistic corrections to the Earth-Moon system's motion.
The geodetic effect was verified to a precision of better than 1 percent by Gravity Probe B, an experiment which measures the tilting of the spin axis of gyroscopes in orbit about the Earth.[1] The first results were announced in April 14, 2007 at the meeting of the American Physical Society[2].
