Post by speakertoanimals on Apr 12, 2011 16:09:03 GMT 1
Recent news:
www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/17846774.html
The Pioneer spacecraft (and others) aren't quite where we expected them to be. There have been suggestions about required alterations to standard gravity, weird extra forces and so on. This work suggests that the actual explanation may be more prosaic. Heat emission from the spacecraft, bouncing off the back of the mirror, seemingly can give a larger shove to the craft than some thought, and possibly explain the effect. Which is, in some sense, a very inefficient method of self-propulsion!
Okay seems it possibly explains a third of net effect. But if right, a shame for all those who liked to base their own wacky supposed new theory of everything on these anomalies. Or who liked to use it as the supposed death of general relativity..............
www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/17846774.html
The Pioneer spacecraft (and others) aren't quite where we expected them to be. There have been suggestions about required alterations to standard gravity, weird extra forces and so on. This work suggests that the actual explanation may be more prosaic. Heat emission from the spacecraft, bouncing off the back of the mirror, seemingly can give a larger shove to the craft than some thought, and possibly explain the effect. Which is, in some sense, a very inefficient method of self-propulsion!
Okay seems it possibly explains a third of net effect. But if right, a shame for all those who liked to base their own wacky supposed new theory of everything on these anomalies. Or who liked to use it as the supposed death of general relativity..............