Pioneer Anomaly Solved - Reflective Thermal Model

[DaveC426913]

It does not make it 0% likely, or even "much" less likely, just less likely.

Right. Just as it is not 0% likely that 9/11 was a conspiracy. There will always be people that are never satisfied. The fact that there's no mystery to it does not stop some people from hunting for ghosts.

Again, it's not like we had two equally plausible explanations 1] heat radiation and 2] a misunderstanding in the fundamental constants of the universe - and we just settled on 1] because it was easier.

We knew it was 1], but (being scientific) we couldn't let it go until we had explained it all.

What you're suggesting is that there are two distinct and unrelated causes of the same anomaly. How likely is that??

 

[atyy]

Great story at 15:40

Viktor Toth, The Pioneer Anomaly: Known and Unknown Unknowns
http://pirsa.org/11050016/

 

[bcrowell]

Great story at 15:45

Viktor Toth, The Pioneer Anomaly: Known and Unknown Unknowns
http://pirsa.org/11050016/

That's a great talk. I thought the most relevant point was during the questions at the end, where someone asked how much better a special-purpose follow-up mission could do. Toth's answer was basically that you can't do any better within our lifetimes, because the limiting factor is insufficient knowledge of features of the solar system, such as the solar wind.

 

[kmarinas86]

That's a great talk. I thought the most relevant point was during the questions at the end, where someone asked how much better a special-purpose follow-up mission could do. Toth's answer was basically that you can't do any better within our lifetimes, because the limiting factor is insufficient knowledge of features of the solar system, such as the solar wind.

Then that justifies not having a dedicated mission to measure the anomaly for maybe 10 to 30 years. By that time, I expect that there is no reason why the temperature anomaly of the solar corona and the flyby anomaly wouldn't have been figured out. In my opinion, they will, and these would help make feasible a future mission in the 2030's or so to test the Pioneer anomaly.

 

[atyy]

Pioneer Anomaly is Fading
http://focus.aps.org/story/v28/st8