Normally, I post a topic like this on the “Against the Mainstream” thread. This is because virtually everything I do is highly speculative. This time, I believe there is a serious threat to the Huygen mission, and I am looking for as much feedback as possible from scientists with more knowledge than myself of solar mechanics.

I have concluded the same failure mode that lead to the demise of Beagle, and indirectly two other Mars probes is inherent in the orbital mechanics of the Huygens probe scheduled to separate from Cassini December 26, 2004. There may be a work-around for this probable failure, but if and only if mission scientists are appraised of the potential problem in a timely and convincing manner as soon as possible.

This past Summer, the Beagle expedition ended as another of a long line of Mars failures when the probe failed to respond after entering the Martian atmosphere. In the final report the investigators were unable to identify a root cause for the mission failure, but what they could identify was an anomalous atmospheric condition that created an extremely low pressure in the atmosphere of Mars during Beagles decent. The evidence of this is a measured depression 200 miles above the Martian surface.

What is most curious about this finding is that the successful landings of both Spirit and Opportunity still experienced flight anomalies that are consistent with the Beagle scenario: In both missions the parachutes deployed late, indicating either a calibration error in the sensors on both missions, or that the density of the atmosphere of Mars at the deployment altitude was less than predicted. Both of the Viking probes, which successfully landed in the 1970’s also experienced late deployment of braking parachute deployment, and they both used much more hydrazine fuel than anticipated. These failures are not coincidental, nor are they systemic: pressure actuated event technology has been highly developed and very reliable since World War II.

I believe these anomalies occurred because of an intrinsic pressure differential in the Martian atmosphere, not an anomalous event. I will further demonstrate the root cause of the failure of Polar Orbiter, the Global Surveyor and at least four other Martian missions is the same, and that Huygens will almost certainly fail unless new physical considerations are included in the descent profile.

I will present evidence of a need to modify our theory of gravity adding a second term or derivative that weakens the inertial potential with increasing distance. This creates no observable traits in nearly circular orbits, such as our own. At the same time, it explains how orbits become so nearly circular. I will show an amazing trait discovered when this modification is applied across the solar system when this hypothesis is applied to solar mechanics. I will also present ancillary evidence that demonstrate this relationship is not purely coincidental. Finally, I will indicate how this thesis can be collaborated in the current data stream from the Cassini mission, in a timely manner so the necessary corrections, if possible, can be made in the Huygens probe before it is launched.

Background:
Cassini-Huygen is a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission to study Saturn and the moons of Saturn. In July of this year, Cassini was successfully placed in orbit about Saturn’s moon Titan. On December 26th, the Huygen probe is scheduled to be jettisoned from Cassini and make a soft landing on Titan. Other than a design deficiency that slows communication between Cassini and Huygen, this mission has been highly successful to date, revealing two previously unknown moons and unprecedented images of Saturn’s rings. The Titan probe is intended to reveal the secrets of a curious world that appears strikingly similar to our own, but that is made primarily from the lightest materials in our crust: Water, methane, sulfur, silica, with a combined density of only 1.88 g/cc, one third of that of our iron-cored planet (5.51g/cc)

Pioneer 10 and 11 anomaly
An obvious if unlikely candidate the Pioneer 10 and 11 acceleration anomaly is a second order derivative of the ‘G constant’. To investigate this possibility, I made some assumptions about the moons and planets in the solar system: I assumed the densest of the moons in the gas-giant systems, and all of the non-gas giant planets actually all have near the same density.

Then I fit a log/log curve to this equation, and calculated what the density of each system would be if they were in the Earth's orbit. This is assuming “G” is indeed variable, diminishing with increasing distance from the Sun. When I plug in the estimated density of each orb, look what happens:

Effect of a G force that varies as kln(k2d’)/ln(r^2)
k=10.159, k2=-1.3532

Orb / Current Density / Density (in Earth frame of reference)

Mercury / 5.4 / 4.49
Venus / 5.24 / 4.47
Earth / 5.5 / 5.5 ( Earth Moon Ave=4.47)
Mars / 3.933 / 4.47
Jupiter / 1.326 / 2.11
Metis / 2.8 / 4.47
Thebe / 3.55 / 5.67
Europa / 3.02 / 4.81
Ganymede / 1.94 / 3.91
Callisto / 1.86 / 2.97
Leda / 2.7 / 4.31
Himilia / 2.8 / 4.47
Lysithia / 3.1 / 4.49
Elara / 3.3 / 5.27
Anaka / 2.7 / 4.31
Carme / 2.8 / 4.47
Sinope / 3.1 / 4.95
P2x / 3.3 / 5.27
P3x / 2.7 / 4.31
P4x / 2.8 / 4.47
Pasipha / 2.9 / 4.63
P5x / 3.1 / 4.95
Amalthea / 1.8 / 2.87
P6x / 2.1 / 3.35
Io / 3.55 / 5.67
Andrastea / 4.5 / 10.59
P7x / 3.7 / 8.7
Saturn / 0.568 / 1.34
Prometheus / 0.70 / 1.65
Pandora / 0.70 / 1.65
Epimetheus / 0.70 / 1.65
Janus / 0.67 / 1.58
Mimas / 1.17 / 2.75
Phoebe / 1.60 / 3.76
Hyperion / 1.40 / 3.29
Encleladus / 1.24 / 2.92
Tethys / 1.21 / 2.85
Dione / 1.43 / 3.36
Rhea / 1.33 / 3.13
Titan / 1.88 / 4.42
Uranus / 1.27 / 3.78
Miranda / 1.20 / 3.58
Ariel / 1.56 / 4.65
Umbriel / 1.52 / 4.53
Titania / 1.70 / 5.07
Oberon / 1.64 / 4.89
Neptune / 1.638 / 5.76
Naiad / 1.2 / 4.22
Thalasse / 1.3 / 4.57
Despina / 1.2 / 4.47
Galatea / 1.3 / 4.47
Larissa / 1.3 / 4.84
Proteus / 1.3 / 4.47
Pluto / 1.75 / 4.47

Look how often the value 4.47 is repeated: Ten times, and twenty-seven orbs, fifty percent of the solar moons and planets have a density within 10% of 4.47 gm/cm^2. Mercury, Venus, Mars, 14 of Jupiter’s moons, eight of Uranus’s moons, five of Neptune’s moons and Pluto,

If gravity has a second order function, if I exclude the gas giants, 70% of the solar system has the same density.

Just as surprising is that when this equation is used, the difference in the G acceleration value (~-1.6 * 10^-8 cm/s^2) is very close to the acceleration observed in the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes (-0.84 * 10^8 cm/s^2).

Is this possible? I developed the theoretical roots for making these assumptions through cosmological observations, but it is much easier to look closely at more local events: We have based our estimates of the density of the planets upon observed accelerations of the Pioneer, Viking, and other probes near these planets. If 'G' varies in the second order, the apparent mass of an object decreases with increasing distance from the Sun.

If these approximations are close to the real values, the correct density of Mars is ~14% greater than our current estimate, based upon a constant 'G' value. Now look at the history:

Mars navigators have been consistently plagued with late flight corrections due to slight accelerations toward the sun. We have measured the thickness and total density of the Martian atmosphere, but if the planet is more dense that we have calculated using a constant 'G', the distribution of the gas in the Martin atmosphere is skewed towards the planet and therefore, the gas is thinner at high altitude than predicted by a Gaussian distribution based upon a lighter planet.

In Missions to Mars where accelerometers have been used to time the parachute release, including Viking I & 2, Endeavor and Spirit, the parachutes have released at much lower altitudes than expected. Flight engineers, observing the decent of Spirit, forced an earlier deployment of the parachutes on Opportunity.

The Missions to Mars that have relied upon air braking have required many more maneuvers than planned to dissipate energy. Seven attempts to land on Mars have failed.

Martian soil and Martian magma, from every site and known Martian meteorites, contain more than twice the iron content normally found in earth soil and magna. The predicted value for the 'Moment of inertia' for Mars, based upon geological features and planetary wobble are at odds with each other.

All of these observations are consistent with Mars having a greater density than predicted by Newtonian orbital mechanics.

There is also an indication Saturn may be heavier than Newtonian predictions. Cassini has measured the Saturn rotational period (day), and found it to be six minutes longer than the Saturn orbital period length measured by Voyagers I & II. This would be consistent with a greater acceleration of the Voyager’s during their closest approach, underestimating the orbital enhancement to the velocity of the craft relative to the period of rotation.

If these predictions are correct, the actual density of Titan is ~ 4.42g/cc, more than twice the current theoretical value (1.88g/cc)

The radar and ranging data we are receiving at this very moment should be yielding curious variance from predictions. If this hypothesis is true, mission planners may be miss-interpreting this data. They may be questioning the calibration of the radar systems or data reduction software. A miss-reading of this data will lead to a fatal episode for the Huygen Titan lander.

I know these predictions, and theoretical reasoning behind them are obscure. But take a few steps backwards and ask yourself: How could the moons and the outer planets be so light, and contain the molecular bonding necessary to hold them together? How can they have features that appear to be volcanoes, and lava flows, and not be volcanic? How can the planet Neptune, and the moons of Neptune, look so much like inner planets and have an average density of much less than the Earth's crust?

The radar and orbital data of Cassini should reveal evidence of the type of variations I have described. As I said, I have developed this concept as an explanation for cosmic events: The patterned rings and the cosmic ray power functions of supernova, the orbits of stars near the edges of galaxies and the Tully-Fisher relationship. I have only recently turned my attention to the solar system, and there may be factual evidence that gravity cannot vary in a second order.

Any posts that shed light on this, pro or con, are cordially solicited.

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jwj

The Reluctant Cosmologist

There were no problems with Cassini's trajectory during the Titan fly-by. If Titan would have been much denser than assumed, there would have been serious alterations to it's trajectory. But none were measured, Cassini is still on the predicted trajectory.
And due to the high density of Titan's atmosphere, the parachutes performance is much less critical than on Mars.

All I can see in your writing is some numerology, but no evidence of any substance.

Harald

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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

Jerry,
you did post this in the ATM forum: here.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Since to Titan the apparent density of Cassini is proportionately less than its true density, the orbital insertion phase should appear quite normal. The differences would only be appartent in the flight to Saturn and again during the landing.

Yes, these are only numerics, but they are derived from a complex string of hypotheses.

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jwj

The Reluctant Cosmologist

One small problem in your conjecture:

(my empahsis)

The anomaly is opposite what you presume. If Gee was decreasing with distance the spacecraft would be further than expected. They aren't. The anomaly places the spacecraft closer than expected.

From here.

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

Not only that, but excluding the four giant planets isn't exactly helping your cause. Over 99% of the planetary mass in the Solar System is tied up in Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, it looks an awful lot like you're cherry picking data here. If your theory is true, it should hold for every body in the Solar System, regardless of size.

The six minute discrepency between the two sets of measurements of Saturn's rotation isn't anything to get too worked up about. It's only a discrepency of 1% and well within acceptible errors, particularly when you consider that the instruments on Cassini are some 20+ years more advanced than the Voyagers'.

Molecular bonding has little to do with how a planet holds together.

Neptune doesn't look anything like the inner planets. It's a honkin' big ball of hydrogen and ammonia. The inner planets are, essentially, rocks and iron. Its density is much less than the Earth because it's a ball of gas instead of a ball of rock with a creamy iron center.

Neptune's satellites also look nothing like the inner planets. Amongst other things, you don't find volcanoes that produce liquid nitrogen in this part of the Solar System. Their density is much less than the Earth's simply because they have different compositions - most notably, they don't have a large iron core like the Earth does.

You're right that volcanic activity is taking place in the outer Solar System, or at very least has taken place in the recent past, but I don't see what this has to do with your theory. Tidal interactions between moon and planet provides a perfectly good explanation as to how this occurs.

Edited to add a missing word.

Darn shame the Galileo VEEGA (Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist) didn't work. In addition once Galileo somehow got to Jupiter, it a crying shame that its descent probe had so many problems with its path for entry into the Jovian atmosphere. Once again, pure luck must have had a role, since the descent probe actually did what it was supposed to do.

Yup, that bodes ill for Huygens.

More errata:

The Beagle 2 landing attempt was December 25, 2003. That's hardly "last summer" unless perhaps you're in the southern hemisphere.

That's December 25th for Huygens release ("jettison" has negative connotations, BTW).

The Mars Global Surveyor recently completed its 25,000th orbit of Mars. Here's a link. How many orbits would it have to complete and then stop functioning for you to consider it a failure?

By "Polar Orbiter" I surmise you actually mean the "Mars Polar Lander"? That mission failed due to internal signal problems during the landing.

The final NASA report concluded the most probable cause of the failure was the generation of spurious signals when the lander legs were deployed during descent. The spurious signals gave a false indication that the spacecraft had landed, resulting in a premature shutdown of the engines and the destruction of the lander when it crashed on Mars.

This link has more data.

Then again "Polar Orbiter" might mean the "Mars Climate Orbiter".

The Mars Climate Orbiter failed due to the use of improper units. The MCO MIB determined that the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software file, “Small Forces,” used in trajectory models. Specifically, thruster performance data in English units instead of metric units was used in the software application code titled SM_FORCES (small forces). The output from the SM_FORCES application code as required by a Mars Surveyor Operations Project Software Interface Specification (SIS) was to be in metric units of Newton-seconds (N-s). Instead, the data was reported in English units of pound-seconds (lbf-s).

The Angular Momentum Desaturation (AMD) file contained the output data from the SM_FORCES software. The SIS, which was not followed, defines both the format and units of the AMD file generated by ground-based computers. Subsequent processing of the data from AMD file by the navigation software algorithm therefore underestimated the effect on the spacecraft trajectory by a factor of 4.45, which is the required conversion factor from force in pounds to Newtons. An erroneous trajectory was computed using this incorrect data.

In short, Lockheed Martin Astronautics used English units in its data which, when sent to JPL, was interpreted as metric. The spacecraft went too low in the Martian atmosphere and either burned up or kicked out into solar orbit.

Here's a link with more information.

The failures of these two missions were due to engineering errors, and were ultimately assignable to NASA's "Faster, Better, Cheaper" operating philosophy.

Concerning your foray into number tweaking and numerology, the coincidences remind me of Bode's "Law".

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Yes, In Against the Mainstream we are discussing theory, and that is good, in this thread I am soliciting evidence, pro and con, As detailed as possible. So far, the comments are helpful.

A decrease in the ‘inertial capacity’ of the system leads to an underestimate of mass. Let me use electronics to illustrate the concept: I can hang my Christmas lights up on any house in the valley and get a good estimate of the distance from the luminosity. But if I plugged them into my house and ran a long extension cord, my estimate would be way off if I did not include the line loss in the calculation. When we launch a probe away from the Sun, As the mass of the system decreases, so does the apparent mass of the rocket. No, this is not Newton and Einstein, and we know it.

I am hypothesizing the equivalence principle is wrong: Inertia is not intrinsic in matter but a function of the total electromagnetic mass. Energy is conserved because the momentum lost is literally radiated. All of the space probes arriving at destinations further from the sun contain less kinetic energy, and this 'line loss' is proportional, as a log function of the distance traveled. The only time this effect is obvious is in carefully monitored probes like the pioneer 10 and 11.

Yes it does, and in a Mendellian way it certainly is. Let me fix that. I have only demonstrated the principle with the variation due to increasing distance from the Sun. Let’s look more closely at how the masses of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus were determined:

They flew the Pioneer & Voyager missions very close to the moons of these planets, then they used the acceleration of these moons to estimate the masses of the rest of the Saturn system. The same error that causes the masses to be underestimated relative to the sun, is multiplied when this solar density is used to calculated densities within the Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Jupiter systems:

If I assume they used the perpetuations of Titan and Phoebe to determine the masses of the outer moons of Saturn, and the perpetuations of Titan to calculate the masses of the inner moons and of Saturn itself, and correct for a ‘G’ factor that is proportional to the orbital distances,
look what happens to the densities:

...................................Distance......S olar........Saturn......"Titan"...
.................."Official"....From.......Distanc e......Orbit........Distance....
Spheroid.....Density......Titan........Density.... Distance......Density.....

Saturn............0.64.........-5.15..........2.75...........0.00...........3.54.. .....

Dione.............1.43.........-4.03..........3.36...........1.12...........4.79.. .....
Rhea..............1.33.........-3.62..........3.13...........1.53...........3.48.. .....
Titan..............1.88..........0.00...........4. 42...........5.15...........4.42......

....................................Distance...... Solar........Saturn......"Pheobe"....
.................."Official"....From.......Distanc e......Orbit.........Distance....
Spheroid.....Density......Pheobe........Density... .Distance......Density.....

Promtheus......0.70........12804........1.65...... ....139.40.........3.16.....
Pandora..........0.70........12802........1.65.... ......141.70 .........3.15.....
Epimetheus.....0.70........12792........1.65...... ....151.40.........3.11.....
Janus..............0.67........12792........1.58.. ........151.50.........2.98.....
Mimas.............1.17........12758........2.75... .......185.60.........4.98.....
Encleladus.......1.24........12706........2.92.... ......238.10.........5.04.....
Tethys.............1.21........12649........2.85.. ........294.70.........4.73.....
Hyperion..........1.40........11480........3.29... .....1464.10.........4.22.....
Phoebe............1.60...........0.0........3.76.. ....12944.30.........3.76.....

I caution these are only gross approximations, they certainly used all the ‘good’ ranging data from several missions to calculate the masses, not just these two moons, but it illustrates the point. Someone who knows exactly how the masses of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto were determined should know in a heartbeat whether or not the composite data will support this hypothesis. These numbers are too close to laugh off without a serious comparison with hard data.

Just as important, look at what happens with Saturn: Without these corrections, the density of the outer moons is somewhat directly proportional to the distance from the planet, just opposite the solar system. Why would this be? Any argument used to justify the fact that the density distribution of the solar system decreases with increasing distance from the Sun, is contraindicated in this oddness in Saturn system. On the other hand, if we are systemically omitting a needed term in our gravimetric determinations, a near constant density for the solar system emerges.

I agree, there are too may exceptions in the original post, but once I realized how the mass of Saturn was determined (I think) the entire Saturn sub-planet system falls into line reasonably well.

Sure it is. Yes, radar imaging has improved, but you can’t tell me we couldn’t nail an orbital period any better than 1% with Voyager or Pioneer data, and in the same breath tell me the same data can be accurately used to calculate the masses of the moons and planets! This is exactly the scale of error we are looking at in the Pioneer anomally.

True for big planets, not for little ones. Phoebe and many of the other moons of Saturn are not round. There is not enough gravitational energy to shape them. Phoebe is pockmarked with craters, indicating, unless you are a NWC, a great deal of age. If Phoebe were made out of Ice, one high velocity zap from anything bigger than a bagel would pulverize it. Molecular bonding as we know it? Or some unknown icey Saturn glue?

Much of this is speculation, based upon the data from the inner stellar probes: before the fly byes, we had every reason to believe Neptune was not very different from inner planets. The moons of Neptune don’t look like hydrogen and ammonia, and they hardly could be, but they have nearly the same density as Neptune. Geophysicists are at a complete loss to explain Europia. A better interpretation of what we see is that 1% error in the orbital rotation of Saturn is real and we don’t know the true accelerations of the probes near the great planets. I really think Cassini will help straighten this all out, but only if we look at the data with fewer preconceptions.

Again, this interpretation is based upon the mass calculations. The theory that there is no iron core is based upon the assumption an iron core always creates a linear magnetic field – there currently no consensus model that assigns causality to this prediction. Mars definitely has an Iron core, but an extremely weak magnetic field.

This is one case where the chemists should be shaking the astro-geophysicists by the collar and running some sanity checks! Liquid nitrogen does not erupt and solidify into visible flows. Water would not flow from a liquid nitrogen volcano either. These scenarios are like climbing up a glacier and expecting to find a volcano cone.


No, but the last website I visited on the subject was 8) .

Not in Hawaii… ops: (sunburn)

This is a subtle effect – once orbit is achieved, there should be no problems. It took them more than 300 maneuvers to get surveyor into position...or was that

Gad! I posted draft 2!, draft three was much less dyslexic – my secretary said I could blame her, but the handywork was my own. I’ll post an edit. Sarcasm aside, the comments are useful. Thanks for the links.

Dysfunctional landing pads is just the kind of thing I am looking for! Do they know the rockets shut down before it hit, or is this just a guess because they know it hit too hard? How do we know the craft was not accelerating much faster than planned, and this created enough resistive air flow to trip the pad sensors?

There was a Russian Mars lander forty years ago that transmitted about twenty seconds worth of data after landing. All they know is it landed, and landed hard.

Me too. The jury is still out on Bode's law and frankly, I do think it is a function of resonant effects not so different from the weaving in the rings of saturn.

Edit: replaced meaningless distance row with 'distance from Pheobe' used in the calculations.

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jwj

The Reluctant Cosmologist

Say WHAT?????

I do hope that makes some sort of sense to you because it certainly doesn't to me.

Oh? And the difference would be?


By what means?

So, are you saying that different masses fall at different rates in an equal Gee field? If not, then that statement makes no sense. If so, then it makes no sense. A decrease in mass (if that were true) still does not lead to a decrease in velocity or the action of gravity. If a screw rattled loose from one of the pioneers and through thermal effects drifted a few microns away from the craft it would still accompany it even though it's mass is considerably less.

A decrease in the Gee constant would fit your conjecture. But, that is not the case.

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

Not surprising. The underlying theme of this thread is not a trivial - even the small variance suggested requires a major rewrite of cosmology. An acceleration, however small, toward the Sun would speed the demise of the solar system. Resonant states would not only mitigate this, it would explain why orbits are both planar an non-elliptical.

Bode's law is certainly not absolute, but it does suggest mildly resonant states, if not an underlying principle. We will soon have a good catalog of planatery systems, and a definite answer to this one.

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jwj

The Reluctant Cosmologist

What??? All orbits are elliptical. There are no circular orbits. And, there are no planar orbits either (although I'm not quite sure what you intend). Look up "evection".

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

You are hypothesizing against all the experimental evidence (as I already pointed out in the ATM thread).
And, they already tried to blame electromagnetism for inertia: it does not work (have a look at Feynman's Lectures).

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)