pioneer puzzle
Saturday, 6 August 2005 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eAnybody see this before? I found out about it through the new Australian science magazine Cosmos. Space.com has a good article on the problem at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_041018.html
The two old Pioneer spacecraft 10 and 11 have been heading out of our solar system for the last 34 years in opposite directions, but it turns out that they are not where they "should" be. The calculations are just a tiny bit out -- by about 400,000km, which sounds like a lot to us here on Earth, but out there it is a miniscule compared to the distance they've traveled.
Something is slowing their travel more than expected. What could it be? After posing many possibilities, all but 3 have been investigated and dismissed. Those 3 are:
• dark matter
• some other unknown force
• our understanding of gravity is incomplete
Edit: the list of undiscounted possibilities is greater than those 3 above. See the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly for lots more info. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keithlard.
The two old Pioneer spacecraft 10 and 11 have been heading out of our solar system for the last 34 years in opposite directions, but it turns out that they are not where they "should" be. The calculations are just a tiny bit out -- by about 400,000km, which sounds like a lot to us here on Earth, but out there it is a miniscule compared to the distance they've traveled.
Something is slowing their travel more than expected. What could it be? After posing many possibilities, all but 3 have been investigated and dismissed. Those 3 are:
• dark matter
• some other unknown force
• our understanding of gravity is incomplete
Edit: the list of undiscounted possibilities is greater than those 3 above. See the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly for lots more info. Thanks to
keithlard.