The Anomalous Acceleration of the Pioneer Spacecrafts

de Diego, J. A.
Bibliographical reference

IV Reunión sobre Astronomía Dinámica en Latino América (Eds. C. Allen, A. Ruelas, & R. Teixeira) Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica (Serie de Conferencias) Vol. 34, pp. 35-42 (2008) (http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~rmaa/)

Advertised on:
12
2008
Number of authors
1
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
4
Refereed citations
4
Description
Radiometric data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts have revealed an unexplained constant acceleration of a_A = (8.74+/-1.33)×10^{-10}m s^{-2} towards the Sun, also known as the Pioneer anomaly. Different groups have analyzed the Pioneer data and have got the same results, which rules out computer programming and data handling errors. Attempts to explain this phenomenon arguing intrinsic causes on-board the spacecrafts failed or have led to inconclusive results. Therefore, the Pioneer anomalous acceleration has motivated the interest of researchers to find explanations that could bring insight upon the forces acting in the outer Solar Systems or a hint to discover new natural laws.