Mysterious Force Affects Pioneer 10 & 11 Probes 829
JabbaTheFart writes "The Guardian is writing that something strange is tugging at America's oldest spacecraft. As the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes head towards distant stars, scientists have discovered that the craft - launched more than 30 years ago - appear to be in the grip of a mysterious force that is holding them back as they sweep out of the solar system.
Some researchers say unseen 'dark matter' may permeate the universe and that this is affecting the Pioneers' passage. Others say flaws in our understanding of the laws of gravity best explain the crafts' wayward behaviour."
It's the Klingons! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:5, Funny)
Contact with the Klingon empire was first made in 2151. Therefore, it is only logical to assume that they were nowhere near human space in 2004. It is most likely that the phenomenon in question was an anomaly caused by temporal vortex flux.
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:5, Insightful)
Logically, we must assume 1. the episode is wrong (correct assumption) or 2. the Klingon Empire is a LOT closer than you thought, Mr. Vulcan.
No, Dude ... It's The COMET EMPIRE!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:5, Interesting)
From the script of the first episode [geocities.com]: From this it can be deduced that the maximum warp that the new engine was designed for was warp 5, but they were going to be testing out warp 4.5 for the first time.
If you use warp 4.5 = 91.125*c for 4 days you get 0.998 light-years. This is so close to a light-year (possibly rounding issues) that the writer who came up with 4 days probably forgot to multiply by the number of light-years to Kronos.
Even if you use warp 5, you get 1.37 light-years. Considering that Alpha Centauri is 4.4 light-years from Earth [wikipedia.org], the 4 days at warp 5 idea still sounds absurd.
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:4, Funny)
This has the very desirable property, that Enterprise will move faster through the boring bits of a journey, and slower than a drunked snail when anything of equal or greater mass is in the vicinity (e.g. another ship).
You'll notice that when Enterprise does take a long time to cross empty space, it usually isn't empty - there's a nebula, a gravitational anomaly, a cloaked ship, or a heavy plotline. Any of these can distort spacetime, effectively gumming up the warp nacelles.
This behaviour is a natural consequence of warp field theory, in which the fundamental constant is not the speed of light, but the Standard Programme Length, from which the whole of QED (Quantum Episode Dynamics) arises.
Re:It's the Klingons! (Score:5, Funny)
That's no Moon... (Score:5, Funny)
It's a SPACE STATION!!!
Sounds like a joke to me... (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Why are pioneer 10 & 11 moving off course?
A: Because dark matter sucks.
A2: Because intersteller space sucks.
A3: Because SCO sucks less, the farther away you get from it.
I'm going to be here all week people, and the 10:00am show is completely different once I get my coffee.
Different directions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Different directions (Score:5, Interesting)
a very large gravity well may have a ripple that exists some distance from the center of the gravity well. The sun's gravity well is big enough for us to notice this while the sun and other planets we did not notice it. we MIGHT be able to notice something if we look at the data as these probes appriached and passed juipter.
Re:Different directions (Score:5, Interesting)
Special relativity says there isn't any particular speed that is at rest, right? Speeds are always relative, right?
But gravitational rippling leaks energy until the object is at rest, right? So there must be a rest state of zero speed.. so there must be an absolute zero speed?
Re:Different directions (Score:5, Interesting)
Decaying force (Score:5, Interesting)
The laws of physics don't just stop working. More likely, we just aren't observing the phenomenon correctly.
Re:Different directions (Score:4, Informative)
for the love of god, (Score:5, Informative)
Re:for the love of god, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:for the love of god, (Score:5, Informative)
And here I thought that human engineering and curiousity had caused them and that the mystery force was merely changing their expected behavior!
If the post had read "Mystery Force is effecting a slowdown of Probes" that would be correct.
As written, however, the correct word is "affect".
Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Funny)
Austrian Toilets? (Score:4, Funny)
Austria is an island, in the sense that it's surrounded by Europe.
I'm not sure about Austrian toilets, but I'm afraid they may resemble German toilets [spies.com].
-kgj
What the difference is (Score:5, Informative)
Affect and effect are two different verbs, with related but quite different meanings.
Affect is the more common. To affect something is to alter it, usually but not always in a harmful way.
Effect is less common. To effect something is to cause it to happen. I noticed people starting to use this more commonly about eight years ago. Soon afterwards, people started to use the verb "to effect" instead of the verb "to affect", unaware of the difference in meaning. The difference is so strong that these people often end up saying the opposite of what they mean.
here is a good reference [bartleby.com].
Re:Austria and Australia (Score:5, Funny)
My point was to use a stereotype to poke fun at a random stranger, thereby bolstering my own sense of self-worth by deflecting attention away from my own, numerous insecurities and enormous sense of inadequacy. This is quite common on slashdot; people usually get modded up for it. Hope you didn't take it personally...
Re:for the love of god, (Score:5, Informative)
Re:for the love of god, (Score:4, Informative)
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
'Affect' and 'Effect' do not mean the same thing.
Or... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly in his anthology "The River of Time" there was a story called " The Crystal Spheres [davidbrin.com]"
Re:Or... (Score:4, Informative)
Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Matrix (Score:5, Funny)
"What you must realize is that there is no probe."
The force! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:blask holes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The force! (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer the equally possible explanation -- that gravity is not linear, and performs differently at large distances than it does at small ones. This can explain the effect of dark matter without all the flubberyjubbery of matter that can't be seen and can't be detected.
Re:The force! (Score:4, Funny)
Well, yeah, isn't that why they call it "dark matter"?
Laws of Physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who studied physics, I'm not too hopeful. The speed limit isn't the result of a few shaky theories, but rather a pretty deeply engrained part of our understanding. If it turns out not to be true, then most of the physics that has been done for the past 150 years is flat out wrong. It would be like discovering that DNA isn't where the genetic code is held, as disasterous, and at this point in our study, as unlikely.
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Using the same logic, you could say that Newton's Laws have been "flat out wrong" for the past 90 years, but for many, many, applications, from automobiles to rocket boosters, they are "perfectly" accurate (from an engineer's point of view).
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:4, Insightful)
> out wrong" for the past 90 years, but for many, many, applications,
> from automobiles to rocket boosters, they are "perfectly" accurate
> (from an engineer's point of view).
Newton's Laws have been known to be wrong for 90 years (they were wrong before that, too, we just didn't know it). They are *not* "perfectly" accurate for anything, from an engineer's pov or anyone elses. What you mean to say is that they are SUFFICIENTLY accurate to accomplish the task at hand. The relativistic effects at the speeds you are using are too small to be relevant, but they *do* exist, if measured accurately and precisely enough.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree (but slightly OT) (Score:5, Interesting)
Setting your speed at "c" and it takes a while to get out of the Solar System. Set it at a few AUs per second and you can clear the solar system more quickly, but once you are out, it seems like you are not moving at all. Once you accelerate to a light year per second, things start moving a bit, especially the neighboring stars, but it is still pretty slow going on a galactic scale. If you want to get out beyond the galaxy, I recommend going perpendicular to the galactic plane and accelerating to a few thousand light years per second (ummm...that is rather fast, don't you think).
Doing this gives you a pretty good perspective on things. Once you are in inter-galactic space, if you aren't moving about a thousand light years per second, it seems like you aren't moving at all. For an even better perspective of mixing size and speed, try manually flying back to Sol. It seems easy, and you even decelerate a bit, but it seems like you are going kind of slow until you suddenly zip past Sol doing about 100 light years per second. Go back and try again.
Back to the original point, yeah the speed of light is fast, but on a galactic and/or universal scale, it isn't that fast. I too hope they either find some loopholes in relativity, or find some loopholes in the universe (such as Asimov's idea of Hyperspace), or we won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
Yeah, I know this is deeply in the realm of Science Fiction, but I'm kind of hoping that it becomes Science Fact someday...
Re:I agree (but slightly OT) (Score:5, Informative)
No they aren't, and I don't know where people get this idea.
In special relativity, there is a factor called "beta" which is used to calculate time dilation, spacial contraction, relativistic momentum, etc. It's defined like this:
beta = 1 / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2)
Where v is your velocity as measured w.r.t. some chosen reference frame.
Now, think about time travel. This would be equivalent to a negative time dilation factor (time moving "backwards"). In other words, a negative beta. People seem to just assume that, if v > c, then beta is negative. But it isn't.
If v > c, then the term (1 - v^2/c^2) is negative. What's the square root of a negative number? It's imaginary. So, if you move faster than light, the beta factor becomes imaginary. You aren't moving backward in time -- you are moving in imaginary time.
To sum up, traveling faster than light doesn't make you go backward in time. It's a meaningless concept. Unless, of course, you are willing to accept the existence of "imaginary time."
Re:I agree (but slightly OT) (Score:4, Interesting)
Or something like that. Here's [orionsarm.com] an explanation that uses a wonderfully confusing picture to illustrate it.
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase Carl Sagan, the real moments of discovery aren't when someone shouts, "Eureka!" but sometime before that when someone mumbles, "Hm, that's weird..."
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Informative)
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."'
I have it on the wall over my bench. It helps when the data goes all weird on me.
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the black hole has not zero volume, because the term "size of the black hole" doesn't refer to the singularity (which might not actually exist; you can't just go into a black hole, look if there's a singularity inside, and come out again), but to the event horizon (which is the border of the region from where you cannot escape, nor can anything else, including light).
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Interesting)
Moreover, there are no simple singularities, even in theoretical GR. According to Kerr, it can be demonstrated that all black holes [if they exist] have a "ring singularity" at their core, not a point singularity. The reason is simple: black holes rotate. If you have a point singularity w/ zero volume, there is no means to differentiate a rotating body versus a non-rotating body. Mathematically and conceptually, Kerr demonstrated that this means that singularities actually distort into a zero-thickness torus called a ring singularity (with its plane lying on the plane of rotation of the black hole). Inside the ring, it seems, there would be a tear. This was even realized by Einstein, and is the birth of the concept of an Einstein-Rosen bridge (and the subsequent dialog about wormholes/white holes).
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:4, Informative)
Given the numbers n,m, then for any value of n, as m approaches zero, n/m approaches infinity. As such, this is strictly speaking an asymptopic problem, but it is reasonable to say that a zero volume object with a non-zero mass has functionally infinite density.
Re:Laws of Physics (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Germany, we have the Autobahn.
Dissapointment (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got it! (Score:3, Funny)
Einsteinian Physics (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, just finished "Ringworld".
*mumbles* (Score:5, Funny)
A bit of editing would have helped (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, don't mean to sound curmudgeonly and grumpy and so forth, but so few people get this right that I can't stand by and let it slide.
I'll put the cantankerous old grouch away now...
Hell, a bit of research would have helped too. (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't news. The slowing-down effect has been seen before, on some other probe. I even remember
But expecting /. editors to recall that would be like expecting them to get effect and affect correct.
Re:A bit of editing would have helped (Score:5, Funny)
("Effect" as a verb means "to bring about or execute".)
Re:A bit of editing would have helped (Score:5, Informative)
How do they track them? (Score:4, Interesting)
This doesn't quite quench my thirst for information: does this mean the probes are still sending radio waves/signals, or just irradiating passively?
Re:How do they track them? (Score:5, Informative)
RELEASE: 03-082HQ PIONEER 10 SPACECRAFT SENDS LAST SIGNAL After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on Jan. 22, 2003. NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.
Re:How do they track them? (Score:4, Informative)
Article at physicsweb [physicsweb.org] says:
When the craft were at distances of between 20 and 70 astronomical units, researchers found that the Doppler frequency of microwave signals that were bounced off the craft drifted at a small, constant rate
So, passive it seems.
Wayward behavior? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm no scientist, but (Score:3, Interesting)
wouldn't the planets, especially jupiter, and saturn, and ALL of the misc tiny asteroids in the various belts, exert a pull on the probes as well? some sort of combined solar system gravitational force since the probes are well beyond the last planet?
doesn't seem that complicated to me, but im definately coming at it from a relatively uneducated perspective then who's saying something's wrong in the first place.
Re:I'm no scientist, but (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, you would have to consider 'how much force?'. The force depends on the masses of both objects involved, and on their distance squared. The acceleration one object experiences is independant of its mass, since this mass cancels out when combining the formulas for gravity and acceleration. You could calculate that the gravitational force of the sun overwhelms that of any planet unless very close to the planet.
To get any feel of the relative masses: 99.9% of the solar systems mass is in the sun alone. Compared to the earth, the sun is over 330.000 times more massive. Compared to jupiter, the sun is roughly 1000 times more massive.
However, a more important argument is that we -know- the masses and positions of all major bodies in the solar system, and any deviation due to those is -not- unexpected or unexplained.
Other Slashdot Story (from 3 years ago) (Score:5, Informative)
Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Funny)
sorry 'bout that (Score:5, Funny)
Better Article On The Subject (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better Article On The Subject (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better Article On The Subject (Score:4, Informative)
wikipedia link for "Allais effect" [wikipedia.org]
Apparently, the motion of a pendelum increases in speed during a solar eclipse; this was discovered by a fellow named Allais and the rest is history.
I don't know how gravity affects the distortion of spacetime, but given my rudimentary understanding of gravity, somebody between the earth and the moon during a solar eclipse would have the sun's force of gravity plus the moon's force of gravity acting upon them, in addition to the earth's gravity in the opposite direction. I don't know if the cumulative though oppositely-pulling gravitational pulls would cause any gravitational anomalies that would, say, speed up time. But I'd believe it in a sci-fi movie, no doubt.
Some electromagnetic effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
The probes are basically big lumps of metal moving at high speed through space.
How much do we know about the magnetic fields in deep space?
Could this be some fairly boring electromagnetic effect?
Hmmm... What attracts Probes? (Score:4, Funny)
Pushing gravity (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea whether the effect would be so big though.
Some (Majorana?) even thought some kinds of matter were radiating "pushing gravity", but I'm really leaning dangerously far out of the window by guessing that this is the way that a black hole a the center of the galaxy causes the anomaly in galactic rotation curve that is observed (that anomaly suggests more (gravitational) pull, too.)
Please note that the arguments derived from thinking about Pushing gravity might apply even if gravity is not considered pushing by the physics used.
Funny coincident (Score:5, Funny)
How funny it would be if our world ended after Pluto and the stars would only be 'a painted backcloth'. I wonder what kinda effect it would have on our society. Scientist would propably spend years trying to explaing the phenomena, until one day a human could travel to the edge and verify the obvious.
Or maybe the aliens that run our world on their supercomputer have not yet coded the rest of the universe. Let's wait for few more years and see if 'the mysterious force' has been removed
Why no mention of Voyagers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Has this effect been observed as to the Voyagers?
Excellent illustration (updated daily!) of all these probes and their vitals (trajectories, distance, speed, etc.) at Heavens-Above [heavens-above.com].
Re:Why no mention of Voyagers? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, he Voyager probes are '3-axis-stabilised', i.e. they maintain their orientation in space by means of gyros and thrusters. (This is a very good idea for steadly pointing cameras at planets as you fly past.)
But, as a result, it is much harder, if not impossible, to compensate for the above mentioned forces.
The voyagers are probably also affected by the same unexplained force, but this small force is overwhelemed by the uncertantinty of the magmitude of the other forces acting on those spacecraft. Therefore, there is not much point mentioning them!
Re:Why no mention of Voyagers? (Score:5, Interesting)
They can - but as the parent post described, there are large uncertainties in Voyager's trajectory. The Pioneers were spun for stability, and so we know to a very high precision where they should be - and so we detect the anomaly. The Voyagers have frequently fired rockets to realign themselves, and this introduces an uncertainty far greater than the size of the Pioneer anomaly.
Gravitational anomalies (Score:5, Interesting)
As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online [economist.com] (may require paid subscription).
----
Gravitational anomalies
An invisible hand?
Aug 19th 2004
From The Economist print edition
[Image] [economist.com]
An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity
"ASSUME nothing" is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than it should have done.
Since that first observation, the "Allais effect", as it is now called, has confounded physicists. If the effect is real, it could indicate a hitherto unperceived flaw in General Relativity--the current explanation of how gravity works.
That would be a bombshell--and an ironic one, since it was observations taken during a solar eclipse (of the way that light is bent when it passes close to the sun) which established General Relativity in the first place. So attempts to duplicate Dr Allais's observation are important. However, they have had mixed success, leading sceptics to question whether there was anything to be explained. Now Chris Duif, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, has reviewed the evidence. According to a paper he has just posted on arXiv.org [arxiv.org], an online publication archive, the effect is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a pair of American spacecraft.
Three different types of instrument have been used to detect the Allais effect. The first are conventional pendulums, such as the one Dr Allais used originally. The second are torsion pendulums, which work by hanging a bar that has weights at each end from a wire. As the wire twists back and forth, the bar rotates in pendulum-like motion. The third are gravimeters, which are, in essence, very precise scales. All of these instruments measure the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface, a quantity known as g. The Allais effect is a small additional acceleration, so tiny that it would take an apple about a day to fall from a tree branch if it were the only gravitational effect around.
Allez, Allais
Dr Duif has examined various conventional explanations for the Allais effect. He finds the most obvious suggestion--that it is a mere measuring error--unlikely, because similar results have been found by many different groups, operating independently and, in at least one case, without knowledge of Dr Allais's results.
He also discounts several explanations that rely on conventional physical changes that might take place during an eclipse. One of these is that the anomaly is caused by the seismic disturbance induced as crowds of sightseers move into and out of a place where an eclipse is visible. That seems unlikely, given that one of the experiments with a positive result was conducted in a remote area of China while another that had a negative result took place in Belgium, one of the most crowded parts of the planet. Dr Duif also considered the possibility that, because the moon's shadow cools the air during an eclipse, this cooler, and thus denser, air might exert a different gravitational pull on the instruments. This change could, he reckon
Obligatory MOND post (Score:5, Interesting)
The gist is this: MOND is an alternative to the "dark matter" explanation. It makes a modification to newton's laws of motion, whereby gravitational strength.
The equation F = ma is well known, but with MOND the gravitational inverse square law changes to an inverse linear law when the acceleration due to gravity falls below a critical value, which is very small (i.e. you get pretty far away from the source of gravity).
This explains most of the observed behavior that is currently explained by dark matter, including the rotation of galaxies which seem to defy newton's laws. Unfortunately, there's still no derived theoretical basis for MOND; as of now it's a rather arbitrary explanation with equations that just seem to work pretty well, and many physicists do not take MOND seriously. Then again, "dark matter" seems just as silly.
A more in-depth explanation is available here. [thefreedictionary.com]
Interestingly, the MOND critical value for the acceleration (a0) turns out to be the speed of light divided by the age of the universe.
I'm just saying what everyone's thinking. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it's what some physicists may be thinking, anyway. I suspect that the Guardian article is meaning to hint at this, as well. For those who don't know, MOND is a modification of standard Newtonian Dynamics that has to do with very small accelerations. I'd actually really, really like to see a MONDian calcuation of what the forces should be on those probes and see if it matches their current paths.
Wow. I think this is the second time I've advocated MOND (a theory which I just barely consider reasonable, and no where near verified) on
Dust from the kuiper belt is slowing down probes (Score:5, Informative)
dust? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oort cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
Space Barnacles (Score:5, Funny)
Fry was right all along! (ObFuturama Quote) (Score:5, Funny)
They are past heliopause now, right? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The location of the heliopause, which marks the outermost edge of the solar system, is a subject of scientific speculation. In two papers recently published in the journal Nature, scientists debated whether Voyager 1 has already reached the termination shock, a sign that the heliopause may be near. The termination shock is caused by a reduction in the speed of the solar wind as it slams into cooler plasma at the edge of the solar system and is similar to the sonic boom that occurs on Earth when an airplane crosses the sound barrier."
So my guess (IANAAP) is they have lost their (solar) wind in the back they had and hence the decceleration. It may not be so simple, though. Perhaps the space on the inside of the heliopause sphere is constantly "sweeped" by solar wind and therefore might have lower density then surroundings (picture: we are in a kind of a solar bubble!
There is a way to put my hypotesis to test: check the temperature readings for signs of friction, or perhaps even cooling.
Re:explanation??? (Score:5, Funny)
Only if by "rare" you mean "all the time."
Re:explanation??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why people are shocked, or take it as a sign of supernatural causes every time a scientist "isn't sure." They're never sure. If they were sure, they wouldn't be scientists. Science takes a certain amount of confidence in a possibility, but being "sure" is the first step towards fudging data that's inexplicable. The universe is infinitely large and thus infinitely complex, and we'd only been empirically studying it for a few thousand years. Most of our in-depth insights have taken place in the past 200 years, and many clarifications and exceptions have taken place in the past 50, and even the past 20.
Scientists have a notoriously matter-of-fact attitude that leads some people to believe that science believes itself to be infallible. It doesn't. But due to the need for strict controls, even on language, to avoid confusion between scientists, even false and preposterous assumptions need to be stated matter-of-factly. Scientists don't claim to have all the answers...they just claim to have some very realistic (and repeatable) ones.
Ah, another religious nut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists not admitting they don't know everything? Well, gee, I thought they even told you exactly what they don't know yet and/or are trying to find out, each time a new experiment is performed. Whenever a new particle accelerator is built, whenever a new probe is sent into space, whenever someone builds a bigger telescope, whenever they bury some sophisticated particle detector deep, they'll conveniently tell you exactly which part of the unknown they're trying to probe.
If anyone believed we already have the absolute truth already, we wouldn't need those. In fact, we could just as well shut down the existing ones and send everyone home. Nothing left to discover, no?
But that's not the case.
The whole idea of science is that we don't know everything. If you want absolute truths, those are that-a-way, through the door marked "religion". Science is in the other direction.
In science at most we might have a good enough approximation for stuff we're able to measure already. And for a given class of problems.
E.g., Newton's mechanics are accurate enough for everyday stuff: things weighing between milligrams and thousands of tonnes, at relatively slow speeds. If you move away from that in any way, the approximation is no longer enough, and more detailed theories become necessary. That's why we have relativism, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, and so on.
We do _not_ however have an explanation for stuff noone has measured before, or for problems which didn't even exist before.
E.g., for what happens at sub-atomic particles under a certain size. That's why we keep building bigger accelerators. 'Cause we have no clue what happens there, why or how. We're trying to find out, 'cause so far noone measured anything in that range.
E.g., for exactly the problem in this article. Noone before had measured what happens when you chuck a rock (or a spacecraft) far enough outside the solar system. It's a new problem, and, yes, the scientists are very open about it: noone has a clue what's happening there or why.
But that's ok. That's how science work.
What will happen is that we devise new experiments, measure some more, and then we'll have enough data to make a better theory. One which will allow us to chuck spacecrafts better.
See, for all its "absolute truths" and the knee-jerk jumping to point fingers at scientists, that's one thing that religion can't do: eventually tell you _how_ to do something right.
Everything you see about you, such as the electronics in the computer you typed that on, didn't happen because someone shrugged and said "uh... guess because God wanted it to be so". It came to be possible because some scientists openly admitted what they don't know yet, and proceeded to measure and devise theories.
(And someone will point out that engineers were also needed to make an actual device based on those theories. Indeed. Personally I just think of engineers as a branch of science. The applied kind of science, as opposed to the theoretical kind. Still science either way.)
Theories which don't just explain why something already happened, but how to make it happen again. And how to control it when you make it happen. How to make it happen slightly differently.
But again, it invariably started with someone saying "well, we have no bloody clue why _that_ happens. We'll need to measure some more and do some serious thinking."
Re:Ah, another religious nut? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally? In German the field of engineering is called "Ingenieurwissenschaften", i.e. engineer sciences.
deep breath.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you smoking? You make it sound like the explanation is on page 95 of the bible.. "And lo, the angel gabriel spake unto the herdsmen, and said: Take thee every herb bearing fruit... and the mysterious force effecting Pioneer 10 & 11 is from God doing his Silver Surfer impression."
Who modded this troll insightful? For shame. Parent post has zero redeeming value.
If science thought it knew everything, scientists wouldn't do experiments.
Galileo? Darwin? Helloooo? Earth to creationists... Stop picking fights with us. Science is not religion. If you think the world isn't big enough for both, go read St Thomas Aquinas (cliff notes: he philosphised that REASON and FAITH were BOTH part of the human mind and that each had it's sphere of relevance, eg, faith won't stop a bullet, but reason can help you design a flak jacket).
For the religious apologists, I held back the flamage, so beat it. And in case parent REALLY thinks this is beyond the ken of science, dude, the friggin' story has two educated guesses as to why it happens. Seriously, do you think you're making converts by posting that ignorant crap?
Re:explanation??? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, actually scientists state what they know, usually accompanied by how they know it, and how anyone can test the theory. That's what makes them scientists. Don't confuse a journalist spewing dumbed-down reports with a scientist.
>>>many times it's from the limited understanding we have and they have trouble with that.
If by "have trouble with that" you mean, "scientists like to learn and discover", you sure have a crooked way of saying it. If you mean "every time a scientist finds an unknown, they get all pissed off and make up lies to tell everyone, because they are heathen scum", then grow up. Science is here to stay.
Science as a school never said that reason precluded faith. It's the religious types who keep that torch lit, and cry when it burns them. Grow up.
Re:explanation??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its worth mentioning that yes, this could be used to extract energy from the vacuum, although no one has figured out (a) how to do this on a large enough scale to be useful and (b) whether it would take more energy to position the plates than you could extract (see below).
Logically, the energy to seperate the plates from one another should equal the energy gained by their collapse together due to vacuum pressure, so that should mean this is no net-gain.
Re:Radiation pressure (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read TFA, you'll notice that they are talking about a force acting equally on *both* probes.
Claims that this is a new effect are a bit too early, though.
Occam's razor doesn't mean that scientists should stop investigating because there _may be_ a simple explanation. If there are interesting, unexplained things, one has to go down and calculate every traditional force(/space time curvature) which may act on the spacecraft; numerical simulations of the radiation pressure of the RTGs, taking the geometry of the space craft into account. Other external electromagnetic forces. Etc.pp.
Then, there will probably be a traditional explanation of the effect. If not send some probes out too further investigate the effect. After all, experimental physics is not only about testing the theory's POV, it is also about exploring the world and finding new effects.
You can have wrong calculations by theoreticians even in such fields where there is a fundamental theory capable of explaining everything. (This includes nearly every field of physics today - except nuclear/particle physics and astrophysics).
Re:Radiation pressure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Radiation pressure (Score:5, Informative)