The Pioneer Anomaly Options

[remcook]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/pioneer_anomaly_faq.html

The planetary society may be checking it out...

The Planetary Society has committed to raise the funds to preserve the priceless Pioneer data from destruction.


After years of analysis, but without a final conclusion, NASA, astonishingly, gave up trying to solve the "Pioneer Anomaly" and provided no funds to analyze the data. The Pioneer data exists on a few hundred ancient 7- and 9-track magnetic tapes, which can only be read on "antique" outdated computers. The agency is going to scrap, literally demolish, the only computers able to access and process that data in the next few months!

[The Messenger]

Richard's proposed test of the Pioneer Anomaly is clever, and controls several variables. Unfortunately it also has the potential of introducing another new one: Shielding the test mass from the 'unknown force', especially if it is electromagnetic in nature: In this case if the results were nil, the Pioneer Anomaly could be constrained to a possible emf - but what emf?

The cloud solution is also interesting, but the two Pioneer probes were heading for opposite sides of the solar system and produced the same relative error. (Two identical clouds?) Also, Nieto and other researchers have been able to all but eliminate the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt objects as likely candidates for the PA, and this evaluation seems to apply to rouge clouds as well. (They also constrain the potential for local Dark Matter & Energy.

http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0506281

Antoniseb has started a thread to discuss second WMAP release, specifically in the context of the 'local' anomalies, and I will post a response there. As you know from my postings on this thread, I am of the opinion many quirky observations are interelated.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=44

There is much to learn.