Mysterious Force Pulls Back NASA Probe In Deep Space
By Robert Matthews
Science Correspondent
The Telegraph - London 2-11-2
A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of physics.
Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of nature.
Dr Philip Laing, a member of the research team tracking the craft, said: "We have examined every mechanism and theory we can think of and so far nothing works.
"If the effect is real, it will have a big impact on cosmology and spacecraft navigation," said Dr Laing, of the Aerospace Corporation of California.
Pioneer 10 was launched by Nasa on March 2 1972, and with Pioneer 11, its twin, revolutionised astronomy with detailed images of Jupiter and Saturn. In June 1983, Pioneer 10 passed Pluto, the most distant planet in our solar system.
Both probes are now travelling at 27,000mph towards stars that they will encounter several million years from now. Scientists are continuing to monitor signals from Pioneer 10, which is more than seven billion miles from Earth.
Research to be published shortly in The Physical Review, a leading physics journal, will show that the speed of the two probes is being changed by about 6 mph per century - a barely-perceptible effect about 10 billion times weaker than gravity.
Scientists initially suspected that gas escaping from tiny rocket motors aboard the probes, or heat leaking from their nuclear power plants might be responsible. Both have now been ruled out. The team says no current theories explain why the force stays constant: all the most plausible forces, from gravity to the effect of solar radiation, decrease rapidly with distance.
The bizarre behaviour has also eliminated the possibility that the two probes are being affected by the gravitational pull of unknown planets beyond the solar system.
Assertions by some scientists that the force is due to a quirk in the Pioneer probes have also been discounted by the discovery that the effect seems to be affecting Galileo and Ulysses, two other space probes still in the solar system. Data from these two probes suggests the force is of the same strength as that found for the Pioneers.
Dr Duncan Steel, a space scientist at Salford University, says even such a weak force could have huge effects on a cosmic scale. "It might alter the number of comets that come towards us over millions of years, which would have consequences for life on Earth. It also raises the question of whether we know enough about the law of gravity."
Until 1988, Pioneer 10 was the most remote object made by man - a distinction now held by Voyager 1. Should Pioneer 10 make contact with alien life, it carries a gold-plated aluminium plaque on which the figures of a man and woman are shown to scale, along with a map showing its origin that Nasa calls "the cosmic equivalent of a message in a bottle".
This is really exciting research. If the effect is real, it could indicate the need for revision our theories of gravity -- and that, in turn, is likely to have repercussions on other theories (dark matter comes immediately to mind).
However, what's really astonishing is the level of ignorance required to read this article, and then type a subject line like "Dreams Of Travel To Stars Shattered". How can you read about an acceleration of 6 mph per century, and not see that this would be absolutely no impediment to interstellar travel?
Not that the probe has discovered where the dark matter starts... no, but instead that when C. S. Lewis wrote about "God's quarantine regulations", he didn't know the half of it!
God knows how clever humans are at getting around limits. After all, He destroyed the Tower of Babel.
"Heaven, even the heavens, are Gods; the Earth He has given to the children of men" - and so the probe is just now bumping into the firmament!
Those Weekly World News stories about the Hubble Space Telescope taking pictures of angels in Heaven, while perhaps not true, are, apparently, not utterly implausible.
>Not that the probe has discovered where the dark matter starts... no, >but instead that when C. S. Lewis wrote about "God's quarantine >regulations", he didn't know the half of it!
>God knows how clever humans are at getting around limits. After all, He >destroyed the Tower of Babel.
>"Heaven, even the heavens, are Gods; the Earth He has given to the >children of men" - and so the probe is just now bumping into the >firmament!
>Those Weekly World News stories about the Hubble Space Telescope taking >pictures of angels in Heaven, while perhaps not true, are, apparently, >not utterly implausible.
Interesting. Your god apparently likes to mess with space probes more than stopping the slaughter of six million Jews, feeding starving babies or stopping violent crime.
> Not that the probe has discovered where the dark matter starts... no, > but instead that when C. S. Lewis wrote about "God's quarantine > regulations", he didn't know the half of it!
> God knows how clever humans are at getting around limits. After all, He > destroyed the Tower of Babel.
> "Heaven, even the heavens, are Gods; the Earth He has given to the > children of men" - and so the probe is just now bumping into the > firmament!
> Those Weekly World News stories about the Hubble Space Telescope taking > pictures of angels in Heaven, while perhaps not true, are, apparently, > not utterly implausible.
Interstellar travel is a waste of time, the only thing 'out there' is the past.
> Mysterious Force Pulls Back NASA Probe In Deep Space
> By Robert Matthews
> Science Correspondent
> The Telegraph - London > 2-11-2
> A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a > force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of > physics.
> Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of > Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back > to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting > weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are > considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of > nature.
> Dr Philip Laing, a member of the research team tracking the craft, > said: "We have examined every mechanism and theory we can think of and > so far nothing works.
> "If the effect is real, it will have a big impact on cosmology and > spacecraft navigation," said Dr Laing, of the Aerospace Corporation of > California.
> Pioneer 10 was launched by Nasa on March 2 1972, and with Pioneer 11, > its twin, revolutionised astronomy with detailed images of Jupiter and > Saturn. In June 1983, Pioneer 10 passed Pluto, the most distant planet > in our solar system.
> Both probes are now travelling at 27,000mph towards stars that they > will encounter several million years from now. Scientists are > continuing to monitor signals from Pioneer 10, which is more than seven > billion miles from Earth.
> Research to be published shortly in The Physical Review, a leading > physics journal, will show that the speed of the two probes is being > changed by about 6 mph per century - a barely-perceptible effect about > 10 billion times weaker than gravity.
> Scientists initially suspected that gas escaping from tiny rocket > motors aboard the probes, or heat leaking from their nuclear power > plants might be responsible. Both have now been ruled out. The team > says no current theories explain why the force stays constant: all the > most plausible forces, from gravity to the effect of solar radiation, > decrease rapidly with distance.
> The bizarre behaviour has also eliminated the possibility that the two > probes are being affected by the gravitational pull of unknown planets > beyond the solar system.
> Assertions by some scientists that the force is due to a quirk in the > Pioneer probes have also been discounted by the discovery that the > effect seems to be affecting Galileo and Ulysses, two other space > probes still in the solar system. Data from these two probes suggests > the force is of the same strength as that found for the Pioneers.
> Dr Duncan Steel, a space scientist at Salford University, says even > such a weak force could have huge effects on a cosmic scale. "It might > alter the number of comets that come towards us over millions of years, > which would have consequences for life on Earth. It also raises the > question of whether we know enough about the law of gravity."
> Until 1988, Pioneer 10 was the most remote object made by man - a > distinction now held by Voyager 1. Should Pioneer 10 make contact with > alien life, it carries a gold-plated aluminium plaque on which the > figures of a man and woman are shown to scale, along with a map showing > its origin that Nasa calls "the cosmic equivalent of a message in a > bottle".
Could it be fluid dynamic drag, due to traveling through the miniscule solar atmosphere way out there? There is, after all, some interstellar gas there.
>> Mysterious Force Pulls Back NASA Probe In Deep Space
>> By Robert Matthews
>> Science Correspondent
>> The Telegraph - London >> 2-11-2
>> A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a >> force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of >> physics.
>> Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of >> Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back >> to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting >> weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are >> considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of >> nature.
>> Dr Philip Laing, a member of the research team tracking the craft, >> said: "We have examined every mechanism and theory we can think of and >> so far nothing works.
>> "If the effect is real, it will have a big impact on cosmology and >> spacecraft navigation," said Dr Laing, of the Aerospace Corporation of >> California.
>> Pioneer 10 was launched by Nasa on March 2 1972, and with Pioneer 11, >> its twin, revolutionised astronomy with detailed images of Jupiter and >> Saturn. In June 1983, Pioneer 10 passed Pluto, the most distant planet >> in our solar system.
>> Both probes are now travelling at 27,000mph towards stars that they >> will encounter several million years from now. Scientists are >> continuing to monitor signals from Pioneer 10, which is more than seven >> billion miles from Earth.
>> Research to be published shortly in The Physical Review, a leading >> physics journal, will show that the speed of the two probes is being >> changed by about 6 mph per century - a barely-perceptible effect about >> 10 billion times weaker than gravity.
>> Scientists initially suspected that gas escaping from tiny rocket >> motors aboard the probes, or heat leaking from their nuclear power >> plants might be responsible. Both have now been ruled out. The team >> says no current theories explain why the force stays constant: all the >> most plausible forces, from gravity to the effect of solar radiation, >> decrease rapidly with distance.
>> The bizarre behaviour has also eliminated the possibility that the two >> probes are being affected by the gravitational pull of unknown planets >> beyond the solar system.
>> Assertions by some scientists that the force is due to a quirk in the >> Pioneer probes have also been discounted by the discovery that the >> effect seems to be affecting Galileo and Ulysses, two other space >> probes still in the solar system. Data from these two probes suggests >> the force is of the same strength as that found for the Pioneers.
>> Dr Duncan Steel, a space scientist at Salford University, says even >> such a weak force could have huge effects on a cosmic scale. "It might >> alter the number of comets that come towards us over millions of years, >> which would have consequences for life on Earth. It also raises the >> question of whether we know enough about the law of gravity."
>> Until 1988, Pioneer 10 was the most remote object made by man - a >> distinction now held by Voyager 1. Should Pioneer 10 make contact with >> alien life, it carries a gold-plated aluminium plaque on which the >> figures of a man and woman are shown to scale, along with a map showing >> its origin that Nasa calls "the cosmic equivalent of a message in a >> bottle".
>Could it be fluid dynamic drag, due to traveling through the miniscule >solar atmosphere way out there? There is, after all, some interstellar >gas there.
Kind of hard to imagine them missing something like that, but it might be that the solar atmosphere is twice as dense as was throught at that range. You know: two hydrogen atoms per cubic meter instead of one. -- Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
Orval Fairbairn <orfairba...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Could it be fluid dynamic drag, due to traveling through the miniscule > solar atmosphere way out there? There is, after all, some interstellar > gas there.
It's all moving away from the sun faster than the spacecraft is, isn't it? That would tend to drag it *faster*.
Orval Fairbairn wrote: > Could it be fluid dynamic drag, due to traveling through the miniscule > solar atmosphere way out there? There is, after all, some interstellar > gas there.
In article <orfairbairn-4A812C.23253605102...@news.west.earthlink.net>, Orval Fairbairn <orfairba...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a >> force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of >> physics...
>Could it be fluid dynamic drag, due to traveling through the miniscule >solar atmosphere way out there? There is, after all, some interstellar >gas there.
Not enough -- by multiple orders of magnitude -- to have a detectable effect, even one this small. Not via known mechanisms of drag, anyway.
There is currently some work underway (note that the quoted news report is several years old) to try to define exactly what *direction* the mysterious force is acting in: toward Earth, toward the Sun, along the antenna axis, or against the direction of motion. (These are similar but not quite identical directions.) This could reveal the general nature of what's going on:
+ Toward Earth would almost certainly mean that the "force" is actually some kind of error in the tracking or data analysis.
+ Toward the Sun would probably mean new (gravitational?) physics.
+ Along the antenna axis would almost certainly mean some kind of engineering issue, like gas leakage or photon thrust from radiated heat. Because the spacecraft spins around the antenna axis, most any force produced by the spacecraft acts, on average, along that axis. Thrust from radiated heat is a particularly contentious issue because modeling where all the radiated heat goes is tricky; not everybody is convinced that this explanation has been thoroughly ruled out.
+ Against the direction of motion would probably mean some kind of drag, although heaven knows what would be doing it. -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
>> Not that the probe has discovered where the dark matter starts... no, >> but instead that when C. S. Lewis wrote about "God's quarantine >> regulations", he didn't know the half of it!
>> God knows how clever humans are at getting around limits. After all, He >> destroyed the Tower of Babel.
>> "Heaven, even the heavens, are Gods; the Earth He has given to the >> children of men" - and so the probe is just now bumping into the >> firmament!
>> Those Weekly World News stories about the Hubble Space Telescope taking >> pictures of angels in Heaven, while perhaps not true, are, apparently, >> not utterly implausible.
> Interstellar travel is a waste of time, the only thing 'out there' > is the past.
: he...@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) : There is currently some work underway (note that the quoted news : report is several years old) to try to define exactly what *direction* : the mysterious force is acting in: toward Earth, toward the Sun, along : the antenna axis, or against the direction of motion.
How do you pick a "direction of motion"? Or equivalently, how do you single out an inertial frame in which to reckon this direction?
: + Against the direction of motion would probably mean some kind of : drag, although heaven knows what would be doing it.
Ah. So presumably wrt some material presumed "at rest". But then... dark matter, or something else exotic, might be flowing differently than the mundane stuff we can measure, so... still seems a problem. Most any of the "none of the above" directions could be "the direction of motion", seems like.
Not that whatever direction is discovered wouldn't be interesting...
> On 5 Oct 2006 15:37:43 -0700, "Sound of Trumpet" > <soundoftrumpet@
>>A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a >>force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of >>physics.
> And your point is...?
His point is this: "If science doesn't know everything, then science doesn't really know anything. If scientists can still be surprised, then we don't need to believe anything they say. Our book of fairy-tales could still be true. God could still be there".
Joe Strout wrote: > This is really exciting research. If the effect is real, it could > indicate the need for revision our theories of gravity -- and that, in > turn, is likely to have repercussions on other theories (dark matter > comes immediately to mind).
> However, what's really astonishing is the level of ignorance required to > read this article, and then type a subject line like "Dreams Of Travel > To Stars Shattered". How can you read about an acceleration of 6 mph > per century, and not see that this would be absolutely no impediment to > interstellar travel?
It's _that_ weak a force? Then it could be dark matter, or it might just be a thicker-than-expected concentration of interstellar dust or gas producing _friction_.
I _do_ find it amusing that SOT didn't even bother to notice what the force actually had accomplished.
The analogy would be mariners discovering the Gulf Stream and deciding that "Dreams of Travelling to the New World" were "Shattered." Except that, of course, the Gulf Stream is a relatively far greater force compared to 15th-century sailing vessels than this force is compared to even a drifting space probe.
> This is really exciting research. If the effect is real, it could > indicate the need for revision our theories of gravity -- and that, in > turn, is likely to have repercussions on other theories (dark matter > comes immediately to mind).
> However, what's really astonishing is the level of ignorance required to > read this article, and then type a subject line like "Dreams Of Travel > To Stars Shattered". How can you read about an acceleration of 6 mph > per century, and not see that this would be absolutely no impediment to > interstellar travel?
The effect probably isn't real. I've been arguing for some time that there is a human related flaw in how Special Relativity is interpreted where an observer observes, or instrumentation detects, a distant object is in a certain position at a certain velocity and actually it is neither in that position nor doing that velocity. It is somewhere then far out ahead of that given position for it and it is traveling a good deal faster than the velocity being observed or detected for it. The reality of it is, in effect, now in the unobserved 'unobservable' Universe, so to speak.
The flaw is no problem whatsoever at short distances on Earth or nearer Earth. It only becomes a problem, an "expansionist" problem so to say, the farther from the vicinity of Earth an object gets. The pseudo-Pioneer 10, at seven billion miles from Earth (observed), if that were the distance right now, would probably be -- at the exact distance, at the exact time -- about ten and half hours behind in space and time to, or in the past of, the real Pioneer 10. The pseudo-Pioneer 10, at eight billion miles from Earth (observed), will be about twelve hours behind in space and time to, or in the past of, the real Pioneer 10 -- providing it is not accelerating in velocity. As you should be able to tell by the difference given here, the pseudo-Pioneer 10 would seem, by falling farther and farther behind in time to the real Pioneer 10, to be slowing down in space and time. It's that "inertial frame" premise -- base -- every single one of those scientists are using. The traveler's frame being, [in Relativity!], the even more, the ever more, "inertial" of two inertial frames than the observer's inertial frame. The real problem is, that particular traveler isn't even real.
At seven billion miles from Earth, it should take any observable information having to do with Pioneer 10 about ten and a half hours to reach Earth, putting that concerned Pioneer 10 about ten and a half hours behind PIONEER 10 -- in the past of PIONEER 10. At eight billion miles from Earth, it should take any observable information having anything to do with Pioneer 10 about twelve hours to reach Earth, putting that concerned Pioneer 10 about twelve hours behind PIONEER 10 -- in the past of PIONEER 10. One Pioneer 10 always relative to the Earth and observers on Earth, and [the] Pioneer 10 unobserved in an unobserved universe expanding in becoming ever more unobservable, or getting ahead in time of observation from the Earth, putting distance between it and a following ghost -- our observable ghost of it scientists on Earth believe to be it because they've badly misinterpreted the relationship of wavelength, frequency, and speed of light (badly misinterpreted light information (all information including all visuals, all pictures), thus badly misinterpreting space-time, thus badly misinterpreting Relativity.
But to recognize and fix the problem of Relativity's misinterpretation, science on Earth would also have to rethink the entire "observable universe," rethinking an entire three-quarter century's worth of cosmological look and interpretation. They won't do that so they will look for something else, some mysterious force, as the what and why of the mystery of Pioneer 10. Of course never discovering it. Of course to be made to look history's fools all over again in a half-century to a century when we ourselves get to traveling out vast distances and back, looking to slow down on the way out, and speed up on the way back (like you see that a car or an aircraft seems to slow down on its way going away from you, and seems to speed up on its way oncoming toward you, when in fact, for this case at least, the speedometer, or airspeed indicator, reads a steady-state velocity being maintained at all times going and coming).
----------------
Heavier than air ships will never fly. (Lord Kelvin)
The future of computers is that one computer will be a colossus occupying an entire city block. (von Neumann)
Columbus and all his men will most certainly die before they reach even halfway to the East. (the science establishment, 1491-1492)
In article <1160087863.333043.194...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, "Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrum...@myway.com> wrote:
> Research to be published shortly in The Physical Review, a leading > physics journal, will show that the speed of the two probes is being > changed by about 6 mph per century - a barely-perceptible effect about > 10 billion times weaker than gravity.
Yeah, that'll be SURE to keep us bottled up in the region for eternity.
-- Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations. Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!) BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all! Charter member, SMASH!! http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus Quotemeister since March 2002
In article <nm2bi2150l0d26te0peudhrb569htq2...@4ax.com>,
raven1 <quoththera...@nevermore.com> wrote: > >A space probe launched 30 years ago has come under the influence of a > >force that has baffled scientists and could rewrite the laws of > >physics.
> And your point is...?
Where else? At the top of his skull.
-- Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations. Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!) BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all! Charter member, SMASH!! http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus Quotemeister since March 2002
Stephen Knight wrote: > Interesting. Your god apparently likes to mess with space probes > more than stopping the slaughter of six million Jews, feeding starving > babies or stopping violent crime.
Well, since these space probes are apparently being stopped by an invisible hand, either it's God, or we'll have to blame Adam Smith for it!
> The team > says no current theories explain why the force stays constant: all the > most plausible forces, from gravity to the effect of solar radiation, > decrease rapidly with distance.
It's certainly true that the force of the Sun's gravity on these space probes would diminish at the rate of 1/(r^2); however, the gravitational force of the Oort cloud only begins to diminish at that rate _once one is no longer *inside* the Oort cloud_.
Hence, eliminating gravity seems to be premature.
Also, how was it determined that the motions of these space probes had been disturbed?
Was it solely by radar echoes and time delays of signals to and from the probes? I suspect that is likely; such a small deviation, barely detectable by those means, would not be detectable by triangulation.
So, it's possible that the speed of light in a _true_ vacuum, as found in distant space, is just faster than the speed of light in the vacuums we can make and measure light in upon Earth! I'll admit that's unlikely, but the results don't really eliminate that alternate possibility either.
Joe Strout wrote: > How can you read about an acceleration of 6 mph > per century, and not see that this would be absolutely no impediment to > interstellar travel?
Well, if one is looking for something to beat the infidels over the head with, one might not read carefully.
However, let's not get *too* hasty here.
A space probe travelling at 6 mph would take more than a century to reach Alpha Centauri. Therefore, this force clearly would be an impediment to interstellar travel by space probes on ballistic trajectories travelling at slow speeds.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. So Alpha Centauri is about 25,000,000,000,000 miles away.
Let's imagine a space probe which begins from a standing start at the position of our solar system, undergoing an acceleration of 6 mph per century. To get the units right, that will be 5,256,000 miles per century squared. So, at the end of one century, it will have covered 2,628,000 miles, according to the formula (1/2)a(t^2).
Such a space probe will have been travelling for 3,084 centuries before reaching Alpha Centauri.
Thus, when it reaches Alpha Centauri, it will be travelling at about 18,000 miles per hour - therefore, reaching the stars with a space probe accelerated to that velocity (say by "gravitational propulsion" - an encounter with Jupiter) is indeed prevented by such a force.
However, 18,000 miles per hour _is_ rather slow even by current standards of space travel, so it _is_ true that this force doesn't prevent interstellar travel.
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