Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Finding the origin of the Pioneer anomaly

Michael Martin Nieto1 and Slava G Turyshev2

Show affiliations


Analysis of radio-metric tracking data from the Pioneer 10/11 spacecraft at distances between 20 and 70 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun has consistently indicated the presence of an anomalous, small, constant Doppler frequency drift. The drift can be interpreted as being due to a constant acceleration of aP = (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10−8 cm s−2 directed towards the Sun. Although it is suspected that there is a systematic origin to the effect, none has been found. As a result, the nature of this anomaly has become of growing interest. Here we present a concept for a deep-space experiment that will reveal the origin of the discovered anomaly and will also characterize its properties to an accuracy of at least two orders of magnitude below the anomaly's size. The proposed mission will not only provide a significant accuracy improvement in the search for small anomalous accelerations, it will also determine if the anomaly is due to some internal systematic or has an external origin. A number of critical requirements and design considerations for the mission are outlined and addressed. If only already existing technologies were used, the mission could be flown as early as 2010.


PACS

04.80.-y Experimental studies of gravity

95.10.Eg Orbit determination and improvement

MSC

37D05 Hyperbolic orbits and sets

Subjects

Gravitation and cosmology

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 17 (7 September 2004)

Received 14 November 2003

Published 6 August 2004



  1. Finding the origin of the Pioneer anomaly

    Michael Martin Nieto and Slava G Turyshev 2004 Class. Quantum Grav. 21 4005

  2. A matched expansion approach to practical self-force calculations

    Warren G Anderson and Alan G Wiseman 2005 Class. Quantum Grav. 22 S783

  3. Quantum dynamics without the wavefunction

    Rafael D Sorkin 2007 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 40 3207

  4. Grassmannian Kaluza-Klein theory

    P Ellicott and D J Toms 1989 Class. Quantum Grav. 6 1033

  5. Casimir energy and gravitomagnetism

    Francesco Sorge 2009 Class. Quantum Grav. 26 235002

  6. The flat FRW model in LQC: self-adjointness

    Wojciech Kamiński and Jerzy Lewandowski 2008 Class. Quantum Grav. 25 035001

  7. An open FRW model in loop quantum cosmology

    Łukasz Szulc 2007 Class. Quantum Grav. 24 6191

  8. Renewal processes and fluctuation analysis of molecular motor stepping

    Jaime E Santos et al 2005 Phys. Biol. 2 207

  9. A classification of hidden-variable properties

    Adam Brandenburger and Noson Yanofsky 2008 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 425302

  10. The causal boundary of the trousers space

    S G Harris and T Dray 1990 Class. Quantum Grav. 7 149

Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. Gravitational solution to the Pioneer 10/11 anomaly

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.