We present a test of general relativity, the measurement of the Earth’s dragging of inertial frames. Our result is obtained using about 3.5 years of laser-ranged observations of the LARES, LAGEOS, and LAGEOS 2 laser-ranged satellites together with the Earth gravity field model GGM05S produced by the space geodesy mission GRACE. We measure , where is the Earth’s dragging of inertial frames normalized to its general relativity value, 0.002 is the 1-sigma formal error and 0.05 is our preliminary estimate of systematic error mainly due to the uncertainties in the Earth gravity model GGM05S. Our result is in agreement with the prediction of general relativity.

A new map of the sky representing the degree of randomness in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature has been obtained. The map based on estimation of the Kolmogorov stochasticity parameter clearly distinguishes the contribution of the Galactic disk from the CMB and reveals regions of various degrees of randomness that can reflect the properties of inhomogeneities in the Universe. For example, among the high randomness regions is the southern non-Gaussian anomaly, the Cold Spot, with a stratification expected for the voids. Existence of its counterpart, a Northern Cold Spot with almost identical randomness properties among other low-temperature regions is revealed. By its informative power, Kolmogorov's map can be complementary to the CMB temperature and polarization sky maps.

Data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) had a profound impact on the understanding of a variety of physical processes in the early phases of the Universe and on the estimation of the cosmological parameters. Here, the 7-year WMAP data are used to trace the disk and the halo of the nearby giant spiral galaxy M 31. We analyzed the temperature excess in three WMAP bands (W, V, and Q) by dividing the region of the sky around M 31 into several concentric circular areas. An asymmetry in the mean microwave temperature in the M 31 disk along the direction of the M 31 rotation is observed with a temperature contrast up to 130 μK/pixel. We also find a temperature asymmetry in the M 31 halo, which is much weaker than for the disk, up to a galactocentric distance of about 10 • ( 120 kpc) with a peak temperature contrast of about 40 μK/pixel. We studied the robustness of these possible detections by considering 500 random control fields in the real WMAP maps and simulating 500 sky maps from the best-fitted cosmological parameters. By comparing the obtained temperature contrast profiles with the real ones towards the M 31 galaxy, we find that the temperature asymmetry in the M 31 disk is fairly robust, while the effect in the halo is weaker. Although the confidence level of the signal is not high, if estimated purely statistically, which could be expected due to the weakness of the effect, the geometrical structure of the temperature asymmetry points towards a definite effect modulated by the rotation of the M 31 halo. This result might open a new way to probe these relatively less studied galactic objects using high-accuracy CMB measurements, such as those with the Planck satellite or planned balloon-based experiments, which could prove or disprove our conclusions.