Is a mystery force slowing down distant space probes???

Hey all,

This is actually a story that's been bounced around for a few years, but I've never seen it on ATS. Some of these links predate the loss of radio contact with Pioneer 10, I believe:

news.bbc.co.uk...
www.cnn.com...

www.geocities.com...
(has a map showing relative locations of probes)

The gist of things is that, a few years ago, scientists noted that one of the Pioneer probes wasn't as far out in space as they thought it should be. It was assumed that an unknown mass (no, no one said it was 'Nibiru') was tugging on the Pioneer... until it was noted that the twin probe, on the other side of the solar system, was slowing down as well. As time went by, it was observed that the Ulysses and Galileo probes may have experinced the same effect.

Though at first dismissed as something to do with a change in the condition of the spacecraft, it's now being conjectured that there may be either an unknown force at work, here, or that some aspect of gravity has been overlooked. I believe the BBC article points out that the planets are not affected by this 'force'.

So, what do you guys think it could be? I know that some of you consider yourselves experts on 'alternative' science.

I have never heard of this before. Very interesting indeed. Perhaps there are objects out there that we do not know of that have their own gravity that would slow the probes down? Who knows? I am very interested to here what our ATS members think of this.

Well, I'm no expert, but I've always held the belief that there are different "levels" of gravity, and that eventually, science will be breaking them down and categorizing them.... I'm of the opinion that gravity is directly proportional to movement, and that outside solar systems, there is only the "galactic current" so to speak, instead of the rip tides in solar systems between planets....thus, the probes enter more of a "null" space... I'm assuming you're talking more about Newton's second law of motion here...but my opinion is that there are ALWAYS forces at work on matter, even in a vaccuum, just that only some of them are observable by science at this time....

I wonder if it could just be the Suns gravity slowing it down slowly over time. To me it seems like a reasonable explination.

Originally posted by jra
I wonder if it could just be the Suns gravity slowing it down slowly over time. To me it seems like a reasonable explination.

Maybe.. I wonder if the craft began to slow down at similar distances from the sun?

Or like SO says, maybe there's other forces out there we don't know about.. Anything do do with the Dark Matter theories?

Originally posted by jra
I wonder if it could just be the Suns gravity slowing it down slowly over time. To me it seems like a reasonable explination.

The sun's (known) gravitational effect was already factored into the calculations used to predict the flight path of these probes... and, indeed, the influence of the known planets was used to help these things get out that far. These observations are weird because they defy projections that take everything concerning gravity that we already know about into account.

How in the heck did my post show up as the Overlord's????

The BBC article says they use the Doppler effect to find the speed of the craft. Could it be that the radio signal itself is being distorted in some way rather than the craft? I'm dumb on all of this.

Hi i just saw this and thought i give you more info on it that i can remember there was an artical on it not long ago i think on bbc or space.com i would have to search to remember......

Anyway it has been proven that they are slowing down due to an unknown force. As all satalites have been proven to be in good health and not leaking coolent or thrust propelent.

Some scientist believe it to be the work of an outer body as some believe that our son has a twin sun (Most stars are binary) as our sun is quite unique if this is not the case. They say that the second star a twin did not egnite into a star and is simply a large gas body in our outer solar system out of our telescopic view which may have a planet. orbits the outer are of our system like any other binory stars do. they also claim that this would explain the unusual wobble in neptunes cicle.
it could of been mentioned in new science journal ....Dont quote meo n this but i just saying wha i remeber on the subject. It cant be due to light particals or gravity as all become minimul to say the least at those sorts of distances.

Nearly 15 years after they left home, the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have discovered the first direct evidence of the long- sought-after heliopause -- the boundary that separates Earth's solar system from interstellar space.

Quote from Click here for info


This may mean that they are approaching this event that they admit has unknown properties. Our lone travelers may have been slowed down by the affects of approaching the Heliopause.

If stars, planets and moons have their own gravitational pull, it's safe to assume that solar systems and galaxies have their own, independent ones. Think of it like the human body; One cell is minute in weight, put millions together and you have an organ. Several organs make a body. All of these independent things make up a single mass. All of the stars, planets, moons, and God knows what else make up a singular grav. pull. It could be this unified pull that is slowing them down. As long as your inside the boundries of that pull, you can move about freely. But try to leave, and this pull tries to drag you back. It's my "The universe as an abusive husband" theory.

I think dwh0 is right. I remember having read that the anomaly can be explained by the heliopause. There is also a possibility that new quantumgravity theories give a different prediction than standard general relativity.

UPDATE: Some scientists have proposed a mission that would look into the so-called 'Pioneer anomaly':

www.space.com...

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I think we are about to discover something novel in physics. It seems like the scientists are struggling to identify this unknown force. I really hope it does not turn out to be some technical problem in the crafts. I guess the scientists know better.

They have ruled out most of the probable explanations, some of which are, "...gravity from Kuiper belt, gravity from the Galaxy, spacecraft �gas leaks�, anisotropic heat (coming from the RTGs) reflection off of the back of the spacecraft high-gain antennae..., radiation of the power of the main-bus electrical systems from the rear of the craft..., errors in the planetary ephemeris, and errors in the accepted values of the Earth�s orientation, precession, and nutation, as well as nongravitational effects such as solar radiation pressure, precessional attitudecontrol maneuvers and a possible nonisotropic thermal radiation due to the Pu238 radioactive thermal generators"(Link).

And now, they are considering dark matter, a new "side" of gravity, extra dimensions*...wow!

* - Here is a paper that talks about five dimensional gravity and its possible effects on Pioneer spacecrafts.
"In induced gravity theory the solution of the dynamics equations for the test
particle on null path leads to additional force in four-dimensional space-time. We
find such force from five-dimensional geodesic line equations and try to apply this
approach to analysis of additional acceleration of Pioneer 10/11, using properties
of the asymmetrically warped space-time."

Here is another one on the same topic.
"In Klein geometric model of space the mass is manifestation of the quantized charges oscillations in additional compactified dimension. We analyze model in which common in four-dimensional space-time for mass and electric charge of the particle trajectory is disintegrated in five dimensions on movement of the mass along null geodesic line and trajectory of the charge corresponding to the time-like interval in 5D volume. We find relation between five-velocity vector of electric charge and mass. This scheme is regarded to have concern with many worlds theory. Considered approach is applied to the model of rotating space having four-dimensional spherical symmetry. One proposed appearance additional force in included 4D space-time, which may be explanation of the Pioneer-effect. We analyze also possible part of this force in conservation of the substance in Galaxy area."

Could it perhaps be a distant black hole? I mean nobody knows how many are out there, we dont have any way to see them except when they are feeding or if we observe their effect on a object.

AGH! Please don't suggest that!! A black hole within that short of distance to the sun scares the crap out of me. To think we would have certain death hovering just a lightyear or two outside our solar system...

a black hole would attract, not repel the craft.

I thought the probe is just slowing down which would imply a gravitational pull of a object not any repulsive force.

i think someone might have said it already, but i think it might be because of the sun. think about it, it happens to comets all the time. lets say that one is going back towards the sun, well, it goes by the sun, and because of grvitational pull, it goes around it and back away from it, and after a long time, it of course slows down and comes back, y, because of the grvitaional pull from the sun