The pioneer anomaly is a mystery involving the NASA Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. Launched in 1972-73, they have traveled hundreds of millions of kilometers to explore the outer solar system and, soon, interstellar space. However, their speed is wrong, at least according to our generally accepted laws of physics. Sir Isaac Newton described the gravitational force that a body exerts on another body as related to the primary body's mass. Gravity exerted by a massive body, it turns out, exerts less force on another body as that body gets further away from it. The gravitational force decreases according to the inverse square of the distance between the two bodies. Albert Einstein later added to the laws obeyed by gravity in his theory of relativity. However, the Pioneer Anomaly (or Pioneer Effect) doesn't seem to quite fit in with these accepted laws of gravity by Newton and Einstein. Specifically, the Pioneer Anomaly is the observed but long-time unexplained deviation from the expected trajectories of the two NASA spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, along with other spacecraft as they travel on courses in the outer reaches of our solar system. Pioneer 10 and 11 are on a course that will soon take them outside of our solar system.They are slowing down as they move further away from the Sun because of the gravitational attraction of the Sun on the two tiny objects. However, they are slowing down faster than would be expected when considering all of the known sources that would have an effect on them. Specifically, when all known physical forces acting on the spacecraft are taken into consideration by scientists, a small force remains.
View: Full Article | Source: ITWire