The Pioneer Anomaly |
The Pioneer Anomaly |
Aug 16 2005, 04:27 PM
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Rover Driver Group: Members Posts: 1015 Joined: 4-March 04 Member No.: 47 |
http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/pioneer_anomaly_faq.html
The planetary society may be checking it out... QUOTE 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 The Pioneer data exists on a few hundred ancient 7- and 9-track magnetic tapes, which can only be read on "antique" outdated computers.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! |
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Jan 26 2006, 07:30 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 124 Joined: 23-April 05 Member No.: 358 |
From New Scientist -> http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8631
Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter A modified theory of gravity that incorporates quantum effects can explain a trio of puzzling astronomical observations – including the wayward motion of the Pioneer spacecraft in our solar system, new studies claim. The work appears to rule out the need to invoke dark matter or another alternative gravity theory called MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). But other experts caution it has yet to pass the most crucial test – how to account for the afterglow of the big bang. Astronomers realised in the 1970s that the gravity of visible matter alone was not enough to prevent the fast-moving stars and gas in spiral galaxies from flying out into space. They attributed the extra pull to a mysterious substance called dark matter, which is now thought to outweigh normal matter in the universe by 6 to 1. But researchers still do not know what dark matter actually is, and some have come up with new theories of gravity to explain the galaxy observations. MOND, for example, holds that there are two forms of gravity. Above a certain acceleration, called a0, objects move according to the conventional form of gravity, whose effects weaken as two bodies move further apart in proportion to the square of distance. But below a0, objects are controlled by another type of gravity that fades more slowly, decreasing linearly with distance. But critics point out that MOND cannot explain the observed masses of clusters of galaxies without invoking dark matter, in the form of almost massless, known particles called neutrinos. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8631 |
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Jan 27 2006, 01:41 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 477 Joined: 2-March 05 Member No.: 180 |
QUOTE (hal_9000 @ Jan 26 2006, 02:30 PM) From New Scientist -> http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8631 Gravity theory dispenses with dark matter Sounds like a version of the theory that general relativity needs to be applied to gravitational models, instead of simpler Newtonian physics. That theory hclaims to be able to do away with dark matter entirely and still explain both small-scale and very large-scale systems. I just imagine the thought of doing away with dark matter is unappealing to some people, as I'm sure some have made the study of dark matter their life's work. Another way of looking at it though is that they're just inadvertently referring to "the effects of general relativity" as "dark matter". |
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