What is Digg?42 Comments
- DerProfi, on 10/12/2007, -12/+45Admit it. The first thing you all thought to yourselves was "Rosie O'Donnell?"
- Namco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I think the anomaly can be easily explained by the considering the amount of space/time rippage that occurs each time Chuck Norris throws a roundhouse kick.
- Zuph, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Did you miss the part where the found over a decade of data they didn't have before?
- quantumHobbit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It would be cool if the Pioneer anomaly could help explain weird gravity effects like Dark Matter/Energy, but I have to agree with the quoted scientists that it's most likely something mundane engineering related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly
What's weird is that other probes, Galileo and Ulysses, may show the same effect. They are too close to the Sun for conclusive evidence. - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Transferring the data from 9-track magnetic tapes to a modern digital format, ..."
This one goes up to nine. - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The correct delivery:
"Your momma's so fat, she's got an event horizon." - SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6A mysterious force.. that binds together and is created by all living things.
"It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." - Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes rippage. You certainly don't think that ripping sound was his jeans do you? Chuch Norris' Action Jeans don't bind your legs!
- robdiggity, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4rippage?
- ray901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not all of us work for NASA so it's nice to hear what they are currently up to and some of the issues they are facing.
Sorry we aren't all as smart as you are, guess it is lonely at the top - as evidenced by your slumming with us here on digg. - tpodr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is unlikely that dark matter would be an explanation. The volume inside a sphere 91 A.U. in radius is 1e46 cm^3. The total density of the Universe is 9.9e-30 g/cm^3, of which 23% is dark matter. Thus, on average, the amount of DM inside a sphere centered at the Sun and out to the spacecraft is 2.5e16 g. Compared with the Sun, at a mass of 2e34 grams, any Newtonian effect from DM would be 18 orders of magnitude less than the Sun.
Small enough to make it unlikely. But maybe large enough to maybe be part of the anomaly. Regardless, great that the researchers are getting all the available telemetry data. - andrewpate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Spinal Tap ftw!
"..but this one goes to 11." , hahaha; so classic. - puto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3MOND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Private industry doesn't have the right motives to do basic science. The beauty of a dollar doesn't map into the beauty of discovery. When you have to make a buck, you turn away from finding and toward exploiting.
- ghostlywind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Peter your so fat you have your own gravitational pull. he he he he oooooo he he he he oooooo
- Oldfart2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Right. Private Industry in Space:
1961: A company organizes to explore space.
1961: The company funds itself with corporate welfare and bonds issues
1961: The company goes into debt buying Vandenburg AFB.
1961: The company's executive is fired because they haven't shown a profit in 5 months and replaced by a new set of executives.
1961: The company earns money by selling lots on the moon.
1961: The company goes into debt again when first launch vehicle fails.
1961: The executives are fired again because they haven't shown a profit in their 5 months.
1961: The company is bought by a much larger company.
1961: all the executives are fired. the company is sold for parts. the large company takes credits on their income taxes.
2007: NO PRIVATE INDUSTRY HAS EVER DONE A DAMN THING IN SPACE! It's not cost-effective AND you won't make a profit for 50 years. - BeefBaron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm sure theres some implausible Star Trek-esque explanation.
Inverted tachyon pulses anyone? - OneLess, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2When and if NASA hands over its responsibilities to private industry:
1.) Companies tank and/or only succeed after getting complaining to the government to get subsidies.
2.) This costs quite a bit of money.
3.) nighttrain gets pissy and moans about wasteful spending and how ***** it was to privatize the space industry.
Problem solved! - mcsolas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Oldfart2
I feel the need to clarify the last line in your post:
"2007: NO PRIVATE INDUSTRY HAS EVER DONE A DAMN THING IN SPACE! It's not cost-effective AND you won't make a profit for 50 years."
Nearly every single satellite payload that is carried to orbit by the Space shuttle & delta rockets is built by private defense contractors. These contractors employ massive numbers of people in these projects and do very well financially from these arrangements. To say that no one has done a damn thing in space is simply a farce, and a bad one at that.
In a few years, when we surpass 'ballistic missile' technology and start using real technology to access space... there will be even more ways that private industry could benefit from access to space and the benefit from developing technology there. - wonderchemist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We will also get more data from New Horizons, which is a hybrid, 3 axis stabilized for scientific observations, spin stabilized for its long cruse phase. There are still a few months of Jupiter follow up observations as NH flies down Jupiter's magnetotail (presumably requiring NH to perform a magnetometer re-calibration maneuver? I'm not sure if NH's design requires this, V1, V2's designs do.). In any case NH will soon enter a years long spin stabilized phase which will give us more data.
- Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does that mean it's bigger? Is that any bigger?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Blast! I was hoping for some yet unrealized insight into negative energy. It's mostly through serendipitous mistakes and unintended consequences like these that point out where what-we-know does not quite match with what-we-see. It's how they found Pluto....oh, and lost it again, it's that small.
They have a lot of data to pore over, they will get to the bottom of it eventually...? - Namco, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4The rudimentary description of what the Doppler effect is and how big 40GB is were both annoying and unnecessary.
- LuckyJack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yesyes, I know it was the Voyager probes, but come on, it's the machine planet!
- bcimhe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1very interesting regardless of the determined cause. at the very least it will advance propulsion and navigational engineering.
- kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You ever have to manage a data center? All sorts of odd tapes end here and there. You know duplicates and what not. Or so you think.
Years pass.
So now here is NASA. And tapes of this sort are still around, and they have data that they thought they had but didn't? Wow!
Thats what happened. - kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Come on it clearly is caused by the isopalavial interface which controls the main firomactal drive unit.
Duh! - pirashkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"So if it’s conventional physics, that’s fine and we can all go about our daily business. But if it’s something else, there may be another page.”
Consider the quality of this statement by Slava Turyshev, an astrophysicist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
I believe NASA like many other US icon institutes has lost it's quality to popularism. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not everyone knows what those things mean. A good article is educational as well as informative. Such details are a plus for a well-written science article.
- Sargasso_C, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) explains the nature of the effect, not it's cause. From the Wiki:
"One reason why some astronomers find MOND difficult to accept is that it is an effective theory, not a physical theory." It is like calling a tiger, a "scratchy, bitey, hairy thing", the sort of solution that mathematicians adore but which effectively shuts out any physical study.
Gamma particle leakage from the nuclear battery is proving the most probable cause of the Pioneer anomoly. Tracking error and antiquated deep space tracking hardware at NASA, could account for the rest. - Namco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Oh, I see. And most magnetic tapes go up to eight?
- JrGhoull, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1what the heck are u talkin about! it was interesting to know how much information they actually had, and the hdtv thing was (at the very least) funny (at least to me :-D)
- Torquatus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Problem is with NH is that its RTG is more powerful than Pioneer's was and it's located near the central mass of the NH spacecraft, instead of on the end of a boom as with Pioneer. Hence, it will prove difficult or perhaps even impossible to screen out the thermal systematics. JPL's Michael Martin Nieto has proposed a dedicated symmetrically-shaped spacecraft to study the anomaly, but NASA ain't biting. ESA won't touch it either, because they won't build anything nuke-powered.
It may also be possible that there are no anomalous forces acting on the Pioneer spacecrafts, and that the real mechanism behind the anomaly is some kind of unmodeled phenomenon that acts upon the radio signal instead, resulting in erroneous Doppler readings. Hopefully the reanalysis of the recently recovered data may discern this from the other possibilities. What’s disappointing is that it’s been a year now since the old tapes were dug up and this space.com article gives no clue when the data-conversion process might be complete. :-/ - mcsolas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2A lot of confusion in this thread about gravity & this 'mystery' can be cleared up by the video recently dugg on this page..
http://www.digg.com/space/The_Universe_is_Electro_Magnetic_in_Nature_Gravity_is_a_side_issue
The spacecraft are slowing down because they are charged particles ( which create gravitational fields, just like planets but weaker ) .. moving through the universal constant which is a charges electromagnetic field. They have measured the "constant sunward acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10−10 m/s2 for both spacecraft" according to the wikipedia.
"constant sunward acceleration" .. lets refer back to english: the spacecraft are decelerating!
Whats has science found to be the #1 cause of decerlation at a constant rate?
Friction!
What could be causing this?
Friction against the universal constant.
I never really thought this stuff was so complex. I guess I missed my calling as an astrophysicist and decided to just build websites instead. I think I need my own blog ;) - Corey1982, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Very interesting. I'd like to hear what the results of the study are.
- slapded, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2cranberry juice?? wtf
- ajt167, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0“If I were a betting man, which I am not, I would bet a whole case of cranberry juice that the Pioneer Anomaly will have an ordinary explanation that is within known physics,”
It makes sense because i heard that rocket scientists get a lot of bladder and kidney infections.
believe it or not, that was the best i could come up with in response to that quote - SteelChicken, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7inaccurate. no theories, no new nothing. just a recap of what we already know and dont know.
- god4twenty, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7haha, you said "penetrates us"
- ScornForSega, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Well, Rosie does have her own gravitational pull.
- nighttrain2007, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1"Newfound Data Could Solve NASA's Great Gravity Mystery"
If the mystery is why they haven't collapsed from the weight of the bureaucracy they've created? Oh wait, I forget some folks actually like the government wasting our money on exploration that could be done more efficiently with lower risk by private industry...When are we going to Mars again? NASA ought to have a washing machine from 1972 strapped to the back of rockets with technology from 1968 ready to fly within 15-20 years. And all at the low, low price of $5-10 billion...
"“I would like to see this story reach its finality,” said Slava Turyshev, an astrophysicist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) who has spent the last 14 years—some of it on his own time—studying the Pioneer Anomaly."
That's right, 14 years. Although I doubt any of his 'own time' wasn't on the government's dime. Following a 30 year old piece of space junk. I'm so pumped about this tomorrow I may just head down to the local IRS office and donate my whole year's salary for them to waste. Every penny counts - LucerinRed, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3personally my thought was Tipper Gore for some reason
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