The Pioneer Anomaly

[MGmirkin]

(The Pioneer Anomaly; Mar 20, 2008)

Scientists have found a small but significant deceleration in the Pioneer spacecraft as it makes its way through interstellar space. What could be slowing it down?

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[Faderbaby]

Slava Turyshev at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is one of a handful of scientists who wrestle mentally with the Pioneer anomaly every day.

Quoted from here: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m ... 41018.html

Has anyone from the EU team contacted Dr. Turyshev to suggest looking into EU theory? If not, why not?

New mission proposed

The Pioneer anomaly was discovered by John Anderson, also of JPL, in the 1980s. For years he didn't publish what he'd noticed. Then he discussed it with physicist Michael Martin Nieto at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Nieto says he "almost fell off my chair."

Nieto jumped into the investigation, and the two were later joined by Turyshev. They dug deeper into the data, even tracking down retired NASA scientists for some of it.

Under the heading 'Exotic Candidates' (to explain the phenomenon), guess what is NOT included? Electricity. Why not?

Here's an article by Wal Thornhill: http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/ ... ectric.htm . This says, in part,

The effect will have a fundamental impact on cosmology because Pioneer 10 has confirmed the electrical model of Stars!

Pioneer 10 is now 7.4 billion miles from Earth, maybe 90% of the way to the heliopause. The electrical model of the solar system predicts that at the heliopause Pioneer 10 will decelerate more strongly.

Again, I wonder why this information is not presented or represented in mainstream reporting? Surely it qualifies at least under the "Exotic" label?

[shrunkensimon]

Interesting. It's quite insulting that they mention all these totally hypothetical scenarios for the anomally, yet no mention of an electrical cause for the problem! Even if one considers EU theory to be a possibility from a neutral standpoint, surely it should be on the list of potential causes anyway, given that something like "dark matter" is on there when that has never been observed/totally ficticious.

Talking of space craft, i have a question, which i thought would be better to place here in this thread than start up a new thread;

If the Pioneer craft came too close to a large body in space, would there be an electrical discharge between it and the object? And also, what about the space craft that landed on the moon.. would one have expected an electrical discharge between it and the moon? Or was it not in space long enough to build up sufficient charge?

Thanks

[egurzler]

I have a question regarding the charge on the spacecraft.

What if an electron gun was on the spacecraft and it was used to make the net charge on the spacecraft positive?

It would seem that this would accelerate the spacecraft away from the Sun.

Also the charge could be varied and the acceleration measured for different net charges, Has anyone discussed this idea for an experiment before?

[redeye]

If the Pioneer craft came too close to a large body in space, would there be an electrical discharge between it and the object? And also, what about the space craft that landed on the moon.. would one have expected an electrical discharge between it and the moon? Or was it not in space long enough to build up sufficient charge?

I asked this question on the old forum, although I was wondering about the Voyager probes' grand tour and Cassini's many gravity assists. The probes simply aren't large enough to contain sufficient charge to discharge to another body. I guess if they were to get close enough to something there might be a discharge, wouldn't be very powerful, but it'd probably be enough to fry electronics.

I wondered about the many Mars failures in respect of a probe succumbing to a discharge event. The Mars Rovers dropped to the surface inside giant balls which, as well as being supercool, may have insulated them to a certain degree, although they didn't inflate till late in the entry sequence.

Cheers!

[Tzunamii]

If the Pioneer craft came too close to a large body in space, would there be an electrical discharge between it and the object? And also, what about the space craft that landed on the moon.. would one have expected an electrical discharge between it and the moon? Or was it not in space long enough to build up sufficient charge?

I asked this question on the old forum, although I was wondering about the Voyager probes' grand tour and Cassini's many gravity assists. The probes simply aren't large enough to contain sufficient charge to discharge to another body. I guess if they were to get close enough to something there might be a discharge, wouldn't be very powerful, but it'd probably be enough to fry electronics.

I wondered about the many Mars failures in respect of a probe succumbing to a discharge event. The Mars Rovers dropped to the surface inside giant balls which, as well as being supercool, may have insulated them to a certain degree, although they didn't inflate till late in the entry sequence.

Cheers!

I believe the speed at which the object is moving also plays a roll. If moving sufficiently slow enough, the object can equalize with its environment without the discharges we would be looking for.
I'm sure the only difference between a comet, and a moving asteroid aside from charge differential, is the speed that it is moving through space in relation to the charge density it is moving through. Not sure i said that right, but i hope you catch the spirit of it.