The lingering anomalous secular increase of the eccentricity of the orbit of the Moon: further attempts of explanation of cosmological origin

Abstract

A new analysis of extended data records collected with the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) technique performed with improved tidal models was not able to resolve the issue of the anomalous rate $\dot{e}$ of the eccentricity $e$ of the orbit of the Moon, which is still in place with a magnitude of $\dot{e}=(5\pm 2)\times 10^{-12}$ yr${}^{-1}$. Some possible cosmological explanations are offered in terms of the post-Newtonian effects of the cosmological expansion, and of the slow temporal variation of the relative acceleration rate $\ddot{S}{S}^{-1}$ of the cosmic scale factor $S$. None of them is successful since their predicted secular rates of the lunar eccentricity are too small by several orders of magnitude.

LaTex2e, 4 pages, no figures, no tables. Accepted for publication in Galaxies

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• On the anomalous secular increase of the eccentricity of the orbit of the Moon
• Cosmological perturbations on local systems
• Celestial Ephemerides in an Expanding Universe
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Gravitational Anomalies in the Solar System?
• Anomalous accelerations in spacecraft flybys of the Earth