Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereid
But then the mystery - at least the possibility of a giant warp in "local space"* - would disappear, and we'd be left with boring old ordinary science, wouldn't we? Ah well, there are hundreds of other published papers to skim (and misunderstand) ...
* see how easy it is to grossly distort the original words? ("The method should have worked if all of the physical parameters used to define local space are correct. It is possible Hipparcos ran into the same kind of Doppler surges Anderson found, or the path through space varied, or some combination of both?")
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Not a giant warp, a minor one, if you read the Anderson papers (on Pioneer, lunar ranging, and gravitational assist anomalies), you would know there are wider margins of error than the known systemics can account for. Three years ago, your peers were scoffing at these suggestions and using Hipparcos as the defining standard. (How could we possibly determine such astrometric limits...). I think you will find that even with the known errors in the Hipparcos measurements, the solar "warp" is more constrained by Hipparcos than Grace or LAGEOS. Also, the Cassini paper, which tightened constraints upon the WEP, was withdrawn without explanation.
I don't find very obvious discrepancy until you leave the Lunar-Earth environment. We need to perform fundamental tests the equivalance principles somewhere besides the Earth.