Rosetta Fly-By To Probe "Pioneer Anomaly" 89
DynaSoar writes "On Friday November 13th, ESA'a Rosetta probe will get its third and final gravity assist slingshot from Earth on its way to its primary targets, the asteroid Lutetia and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But the slingshot itself will allow ESA scientists to examine the trajectory for unusual changes seen in several other probes' velocities. An unaccountable variation was first noticed as excess speed in Pioneers 11 and 12, and has since been called the Pioneer Anomaly. More troubling than mere speed increase is the inconsistency of the effect. While Galileo and NEAR had appreciable speed increases, Cassini and Messenger did not. Rosetta itself gained more speed than expected from its 2005 fly-by, but only the expected amount from its 2007 fly-by. Several theories have been advanced, from mundane atmospheric drag to exotic variations on special relativity, but none are so far adequate to explain both the unexpected velocity increases and the lack of them in different instances. Armed with tracking hardware and software capable of measuring Rosetta's velocity within a few millimeters per second while it flies past at 45,000 km/hr, ESA will be gathering data which it hopes will help unravel the mystery."
Re:Just so nobody fucks up the units from the star (Score:4, Funny)
Metric only (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First post ! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry but your post encountered a fly-by anomaly when passing one of the big Internet routers, and therefore was delayed, thus allowing other posts to come before it.
Re:Metric only (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's Pioneer 10 and 11 (Score:2, Funny)
My father worked on some long distance space probes in the 1970s, as well. The excitement you're talking about is very real.
One day during the summer, when I was maybe 12 or 13, he came home from work early. It turns out the probe he was working with at the time was crossing the asteroid field or positioning itself to take some pictures or something, and well, he got very excited. So excited that he shit his pants while in mission control.
So he came home, had to change, and went back to work.
Mond 4 life, bitches! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Metric only (Score:3, Funny)
Could you please tell me what that is in metric time? These crazy 60 second minutes and 60 minute hours are too confusing. It might have been ok for the Summarians, but it's time to use a modern unit divisible by 10.
Metric and English seconds are exactly the same, if you start at minus 40. You can also use the metric version called Absolute Seconds, which start at minus 273 seconds (minus 4 minutes, 33 seconds). I'm pretty sure this is what NASA is using since they have an automatic hold scheduled into all their count downs at around T minus 4 minutes. It probably takes them that 33 seconds to change the clock faces from 60/60/24 markings to 10/10/10 markings. Actually, the time researcher Vernor Vinge presented a time standard in one of his studies "A Fire Upon The Deep" based on a 100/100/100 (100, 10,000, 1,000,000 seconds; about a minute and a half, 2 3/4 hours and 11.5 days) scale. The proposed system suffers from association with a communications system proposed to allow open discussion between individuals in distant locations, with intermediaries assisting in the transmission either in order simply to participate, or if providing large amounts of bandwidth, for a fee. This ridiculous concept is obviously untenable, and having it intermixed with this time standard causes one to disbelieve both.
Re:Metric only (Score:5, Funny)