Pioneer 10 anomaly
1 Aug 2006 16:39:56 UTC
Topic 191641
(moderation:
according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10#Pioneer_anomaly
we inspect anomalous Doppler frequency drift
I just wonder have the scientists accounted for Sol gravitational well when estimating the drift?
What i mean is that electromagnetic wave increase/decrease in frequency when escaping/incoming the gravity center
one more thing to be careful about is the speed of the pioneer - how big the relativistic effects are at that speed (time dilation) - have this effect been accounted for?
one more question - according to wikipedia "The drift can be interpreted as due to a constant acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10−10 m/s2 directed towards the Sun."
could this be caused by the masses of all the planets and asteroids in the solar system (especialy the Jupiter) ?
Pioneer 10 anomaly
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yes all that stuff is taken into account.
PS The thing that people looking to use the deviation as proof that general relativity is wrong don't take into account is that there are no Voyager anomolies, despite their being nearly as far out. IOW something funny on the pioneer probes is the most likely cause.
RE: The thing that people
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AIUI we don't know whether or not there's a corresponding Voyager anomaly, because its manoeuvres on the way out created uncertainties in its expected velocity & attitude, of much greater magnitude than Pioneer-like deviations would have; in other words we don't have good enough baseline data to compare.