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Pioneer Anomaly

In 1980 John Anderson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist, was looking over data from two Pioneer spacecraft that had been speeding through the solar system for nearly a decade. He noticed the crafts weren’t where they were supposed to be. In fact, rather than traveling at a constant velocity of more than 25,000 mph toward the edge of the solar system, Pioneer 10 and 11 were inexplicably slowing down. Even factoring in the gravitational pull of the sun and the other planets couldn’t explain what he was seeing.

Since then the observed deviation from expectations of the trajectories of various unmanned spacecraft visiting the outer Solar system is called The Pioneer Anomaly’’.Attempts to test the anomaly using other spacecraft such as Galileo and the Voyager probes have proved unsuccessful, and the deep-space missions that are currently being developed will not be designed to test the properties of the Pioneer anomaly.

In October 2004, a European Space Agency panel recommended a space mission to test the Pioneer anomaly directly and determine whether Anderson had found something that could rewrite physics textbooks. Such a mission could also be an excellent opportunity to develop and test new technologies for spacecraft design, in-space propulsion, on-board power and many other developments that may ultimately find their way into many other space and terrestrial applications.

posted by: kyawoo at 11:00 | link | comments (3) |
astronomy

Comments:

#1  09 January 2005 - 02:47

 

Wow, that's intense.

Anonymous

#2  10 January 2005 - 22:11

 

What was different between the Pioneer 10 and 11 trajectories and the Galileo and Voyager trajectories? Were the measurements made while the craft were in the plane of the solar system? Have dark energy of dark matter theories been used to make the correction? Did Pioneer 10 and 11 go through thick dust or even a large cloud of gas that Galileo and Voyager didn't go through?

Very very interesting and I'd like to read more.

Anonymous

#3  16 January 2005 - 20:17

 

Could it be that the probes are affected by a sibling to our Sun that is dark (never reached ignition) and as yet not discovered? Most star systems are binary. Perhaps ours is as well. Does anyone know if John Anderson or his colleagues have discounted this possibility?

Anonymous

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