Pioneer Anomaly

...Since Doitsujin's last science post was on this topic, I'd like to continue it. That, and I find it very interesting too.

It might be a result of a reduce form of "frame-dragging" as it was suggested earlier, but it's more likely (IMO) a simple misunderstanding of the gravitational gradient toward the outer edge of our solar system.

Someone suggested in another forum that the overal solar system created a gravitational slope, sort of independant, but still resulting from, the combined gravity of the planets and the Sun. Personally, I'm not so sure about this particular theory, but it's kind of cool anyway.

Interesting. I still wonder though why they are becoming slower. I mean, gravity should become weaker out there, shouldn't it?

That's what I'd assume too... that gravitational pull should get weaker the further away from the object you get.

However, they do state that the gravity is weakening at that distance, it's just not as weak as calculations based on the known laws of physics would show. That could mean we need to make some revisions to physics, or that there's some mass out there we haven't found causing this, or... it could be a simple instrument malfunction.

Still neat though.

Yeah, the expected is:

a_P = (8.74 pm 1.33) x 10^{-8} cm/s^2

It doesn't come out to that... By how much - I'd have to go look it up.

It must be error in matrix.

But seriously, it's what's interesting about science. You come up with theory that works. Then often eventulally there comes better measurment that proves things don't work exactly as expected, so it's time to figure out new theory, etc. That's why science is fun, it would be boring if everything worked as expected.