Quote:
Originally Posted by Jens
I'm intrigued by this statement, because it's something I've wondered about. Has the Pioneer anomaly been convincingly shown to be toward the sun? Because I understood there were three possibilities: (1) that it was toward the earth, indicating some measurement anomaly; (2) that it was toward the sun, indicating a gravitational anomaly; or (3) that it was in the trajectories, indicating something like dark matter slowing them down.
I think that if it is accepted that the acceleration is toward the sun, then gravity is the place to look for an explanation.
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Neito & Co are not convinced the 'force' is strickly toward the sun. One of the reasons they wanted the earlier Pioneer data preserved, was to determine if there is an unexpected vector. Thanks to the Planetary Society, this data is being analysed, and we should get a better answer.