I don't usually post in this forum, but I didn't see anything about the Pioneer Anomaly here.
From the link:
"On its way out, Pioneer 10 became a useful partner in an experiment of celestial mechanics. By closely monitoring its trajectory, scientists might detect an unexpected gravitational tug that could betray the existence of the long-hypothesized Planet X. Based largely on unexplained motions in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, several 20th-century astronomers had suggested the existence of an undiscovered world at the edge of our solar system.
John D. Anderson, a veteran JPL scientist, took on the task of studying the Pioneer 10 and 11 radio signal data for any sign of Planet X. His search had come up empty. For this reason, among others, John and his team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory became convinced that the chance of discovering a 10th planet was slim, as they reported in the May/June 1999 issue of The Planetary Report. But in early 1980, John and his team began to see signs of something else—something quite unexpected. While searching for Planet X, we noticed that the tracking data did not quite fit with the existing solar system model. They showed an anomalous acceleration—in this case, an acceleration backward. It did not match any expected Planet X force, and we couldn’t immediately explain it. When theoretical models do not fit experimental data, standard scientific practice is to find a reason for the mismatch. Therefore, we embarked on a program to study the anomalous acceleration."
There are two things here. One being, discovering why this anomaly in the Pioneer's 10 & 11 velocity is occuring. The other, being able to save the Pioneer data which exists on a few hundred very old 7- and 9-track magnetic tapes, and can only be read on outdated computers. This is because NASA has decided to give up trying to figure out this anomaly and are going to destroy the only computers able to access and process that data in a few months.
Some of the hypotheses regarding this are:
-dark matter
-an acceleration of time
-a change (or misconception) in the laws of gravity
Taken from this link to spaceref.com. |
