In message , Igor
writes
On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 00:03:07 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
wrote:

In message , Igor
writes

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.

Check out this link:

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/Anoma...eleration.html

Very interesting! It's somehow satisfying that the explanation is
conventional, not due to some boring property of the spacecraft, and
gives new information.
Presumably the reason Cassini hasn't seen an acceleration is that it's
more than 20 x as massive.
One thing does occur to me. Paul Marmet rather fancifully suggests that
the Pioneers will gather dust as they move. It seems to me that the dust
particles will actually be moving at very high speed relative to the
spacecraft and will vaporise. More to the point, that means they will
impart their kinetic energy to the spacecraft, which scales as V^2, not
V.
--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
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