Scientists reconstruct the Pioneer spacecraft anomaly

scientific american ^ | April 15, 2008 | JR Minkel

[BenLurkin]

Ten years ago, NASA researchers discovered that the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft had fallen slightly behind course during their 35-year journeys to the outer reaches of the solar system. In what has become known as the Pioneer anomaly, which was the subject of one of the talks this weekend at the American Physical Society here in St. Louis, nobody knows for sure why it happened. It probably stemmed from leaking gas or heat.

But there's also the possibility, however remote, that gravity doesn't behave the way we expect. Until recently, researchers haven't had the data to distinguish the different possibilities. That changed in 2006, when NASA physicist Slava Turyshev, a co-discoverer of the anomaly, was visiting a colleague at the NASA Ames Research Center. The Moffett Field, Calif.–facility was about to throw out hundreds of magnetic disks containing the Pioneer telemetric data—temperature and power readings that the twin craft had sent back to NASA once every few minutes until they traveled out of range. (NASA finally lost contact with Pioneer 10 in 2003, after 31 years. It had lost contact with Pioneer 11 in 1995.)

Turyshev and his colleagues rescued the data, and Viktor Toth, a computer programmer in Ottawa, Ontario, volunteered to write brand new code that extracted the telemetry readings from the raw 1s and 0s encoded in the magnetic disks.

A group of some 50 researchers, including Turyshev, is now trying to match the data to a detailed computer model of the craft's inner workings. The model is designed to mimic the flow of heat and electricity produced by the craft's generators, which harnessed the heat from radioactive plutonium and turned a fraction of it into electricity to power the craft.

[mamelukesabre]

I wanna hear the explanation for the v y ger anomoly.

[BenLurkin]

Women with shaved heads and funny accents.

[bunkerhill7]

Moslem Scientists reconstruct the Pioneer spacecraft anomaly scientific american ^ | April 15, 2008 |

Ten years ago, NASA researchers discovered that the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft had fallen slightly behind course during their 35-year journeys to the outer reaches of the solar system, due to the extra weight of 72 Moslem virgins hiding in the wheelwells.

[BenLurkin]

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/campanis.wav

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Stunning that those craft put in the performance that they have - horrifying that information from those historic flights was going to get thrown "out" like discarded candy wrappers. What the hell - that's some priceless info.

 

 

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[mamelukesabre]

do they like men? this could be HUGE!

[allmost]

Lots of jealousy out regarding Einstein. They are always proven wrong yet they never give up. I would love to see the compromise.

[Lurker]

Those spacecraft have been bombarded by galactice crap since the day they left our planet. It's no wonder they're slowing down. The mathemeticians make the mistake of thinking that space is empty.

It isn't. Their math doesn't take all of the factors into account, hence it's wrong.There's nothing that's inexplicable here.

[tophat9000]

So the space craft are moving slower then expect out from the solar system then what they would expect from gravity alone …in effect the have a very slight drag "head wind"…

Well space is not a pure vacuum ..it is full of gas and debris

And the solar system gravity would be pulling all that gas and debris INWARDS to the solar system…

In effect creating a very slight gas and debris “head wind” the outgoing spacecraft would be flying in to

So you cannot calculate the drag of solar system gravity alone on anything outbound... you would have to account for gas and debris being drawn in to the solar system causing a gas and debris “head wind” …

And the amount of gas and debris in that “head wind” is an unknown variable

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Just no place to store a few disks of boring irreplaceable data acquired over thirty years at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Might as well go along with Obama and sh—can NASA.

All empires die.

[Noob1999]

So, our government can spend billions of $$$ to explore space, but can’t come up with the cost of physical storage for some hard disks of information that was collected from their breakthrough experiments??

How screwed up is that????

[Tellurian]

I wonder when Pioneer 10 reaches heliopause, or if the astrophysicists can even say.

[PIF]

Worse than this incident is much (and in some cases all) of the early probe data was discarded, including a lot of the Apollo data... some was not actually discarded, but lost in warehouses or deteriorated over time by poor storage conditions. Other data, like this story hints at, was only retrievable by using forgotten computer languages and compilers.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin, a two list ping topic.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin, a two list ping topic.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1228396/posts?page=32#32
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1808454/posts?page=10#10

[SunkenCiv]

• Mystery force tugs distant probes
• Gravitational anomalies: An invisible hand?
• Pioneer [gravitational] anomaly put to the test
• Scientists ponder the problem with gravity
• 13 things that do not make sense
• The Unfinished Quest to Solve the Pioneer Anomaly (unknown gravitational effect)
• Computer Sleuths Try To Crack Pioneer Anomaly
• Newfound Data Could Solve NASA's Great Gravity Mystery
• SubQuantum Kinetics, wide ranging unifying cosmology theory by Dr. Paul LaViolette
• Creation Cosmologies Solve Spacecraft Mystery
• NASA Baffled by Unexplained Force Acting on Space Probes
• Pioneer spacecraft mystery may be laid to rest
• Lights Out for Dark Matter Claim?
• Problem Detected with Voyager 2 Spacecraft at Edge of Solar System
• Scientists reconstruct the Pioneer spacecraft anomaly

[The Comedian]

I'll just remind everyone that when we go around throwing probes willy nilly into space, sometimes they come back.

Pissed.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.