S ep 1 99 9 Detection of the gravitomagnetic clock effect

The essence of the gravitomagnetic clock effect is properly defined showing that its origin is in the topology of world lines with closed space projections. It is shown that, in weak field approximation and for a spherically symmetric central body, the loss of synchrony between two clocks counter-rotating along a circular geodesic is proportional to the angular momentum of the source of the gravitational field independently from the size of the orbit. Numerical estimates are presented for objects within the solar system. The results indicate the possibility to actually detect the effect around the Earth or possibly better around Jupiter.