In message , Igor
writes
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:01:41 -0500, "ralph sansbury"
wrote:

The Anomalous Acceleration of Pioneer 10 toward the sun of
about 10^-8cm/sec^2
at various distances r from the sun can be associated with
the fact that the velocity of the spacecraft is greater than the
orbital velocity the
spacecraft would have in a circular orbit at the same distance.
A rationale for this coincidence is given below.

Apparently, the accepted explanation for the anomalous acceleration of
Pioneers 10 and 11 is that they're experiencing a larger gas and dust
density in the Kyper belt than was expected.


Interesting. Do you have a reference for that? I'd be surprised, because
the acceleration has been almost constant since about 15AU (inside the
orbit of Uranus) and if anything there is _less_ dust than expected in
the Kuiper belt..
Personally, I think it's looking more and more likely that Ned Wright is
correct and they hadn't modelled thermal emission from the RTGs
correctly. I haven't seen any evidence of an anomaly on Cassini.
--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
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