Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T17:46:37.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Pioneer Anomaly and its Implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2006

S.G. Turyshev
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
M.M. Nieto
Affiliation:
Theoretical Division (MS-B285), Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
J.D. Anderson
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
Get access

Abstract

The Pioneer 10/11 spacecraft yielded the most precise navigation in deep space to date. However, their radio-metric tracking data has consistently indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, Doppler frequency drift. The drift is a blue-shift, uniformly changing with a rate of ~6 × 10-9 Hz/s and can be interpreted as a constant sunward acceleration of each particular spacecraft of aP = (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10-10 m/s2. The nature of this anomaly remains unexplained. Here we summarize our current knowledge of the discovered effect and review some of the mechanisms proposed for its explanation. Currently we are preparing for the analysis of the entire set of the available Pioneer 10/11 Doppler data which may shed a new light on the origin of the anomaly. We present a preliminary assessment of such an intriguing possibility.


Type
Research Article
Copyright
© EAS, EDP Sciences, 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)