View Single Post
  #5  
Old July 2nd 06, 10:50 PM posted to alt.conspiracy,alt.astronomy,sci.astro,uk.sci.astronomy,sci.physics
Paul Schlyter[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10
Default Star Distances

In article .com,
says...

The anomalous acceleration of Pioneer 10 and 11 is in the direction of
the Sun, not away from it. In other words they are slowing down more
than expected, not speeding up.

Double-A


Double? A binary system! Oh my gawd, we're in a binary star system.
So let me get this straight, I am right, the spacecraft is slowing down
due to a star... behind us. The probe is now far enough away so that
the gravity of our Sun is not overwhelming, therefore not masking, our
ability to detect the pull of "our" other sun? Wow! Neato! I love
it!


That idea is not new:
http://www.nineplanets.org/hypo.html#nemesis

And it's also very unlikely. A star that close to us would appear quite
bright - either in visible light or in the infrared. Despite numerous
attempts, no such star has been found,


Hey, that would screw up parallax measurements as well.


In principle, yes, but in practice it would only have the effect of changing
the proper motion of the stars somewhat. We're talking about a hypothetical
binary system with an orbital period of hundreds of thousands of years,
right? The parallax would be easy to distinguish from the proper motion,
since only the parallax would have a period of one Earth year.


http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/a...bin_orbits.htm



--
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at saaf dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/