The Lense–Thirring effect, also known as frame dragging, is a prediction of general relativity that describes how the rotation of a massive object—like a planet, star, or black hole—can twist and drag the surrounding spacetime.
When a mass spins, it doesn’t just curve spacetime (as in ordinary gravity); it also causes spacetime itself to swirl around with it. This twisting leads to a subtle but measurable effect: the precession (slow rotation) of the orbits and axes of nearby objects.
For example, a satellite orbiting Earth will experience a slight shift in its orbital plane over time due to Earth’s rotation. This was confirmed by NASA’s Gravity Probe B experiment, which precisely measured the tiny precession of gyroscopes in orbit.
The Lense–Thirring effect becomes especially strong near rapidly spinning black holes, where it can drastically alter the paths of matter and light. It plays a key role in astrophysical phenomena like accretion disks, jet alignment, and gravitational wave modeling.