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Gyroscopes

Laser gyroscope precisely tracks the Earth’s rotation

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 1023–1024 (2023)Cite this article

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Precise measurements of the length of an Earth day are essential for understanding global mass transport phenomena. A ring laser gyroscope provides absolute measurements of variations in the length of the day with a resolution of 5 parts per billion over a 14-day period.

Although the Earth’s rotation is often thought to be constant, high-resolution examinations reveal the existence of tiny changes that are due to a variety of phenomena1. The Earth is not a perfect sphere, and its mass distribution is not homogeneous. Gravitational attraction between the Moon and the Sun causes retrograde polar motion during the day and tidal deformations contribute to variations in the length of the day (LoD). These rotational perturbations, with amplitudes as small as 0.1 part per million, are well explained by theoretical models. However, at higher resolutions, additional unpredictable perturbations arise from the global transport of fluid masses, such as oceanic currents and large-scale air circulation patterns2. These combined contributions alter the Earth’s spin by up to one millisecond over several days. The precise measurement of these contributions provides key parameters with which to improve the accuracy of geophysical models describing global mass transport effects.

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Fig. 1: The large ring laser gyroscope at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell and its output.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Optoelectronics Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy

    Caterina Ciminelli & Giuseppe Brunetti

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  1. Caterina Ciminelli
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  2. Giuseppe Brunetti
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Correspondence to Caterina Ciminelli.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Ciminelli, C., Brunetti, G. Laser gyroscope precisely tracks the Earth’s rotation. Nat. Photon. 17, 1023–1024 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01293-y

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