The ‘Pioneer Anomaly’
The ‘Pioneer Anomaly’ describes a deviation from predicted decelerations of the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft after they passed about 13×10^9 kilometres on their trajectories out of the Solar System.
This conundrum has been studied widely as it may be due to some unexpected new physical phenomenon, or it may be due to a peculiarity of the satellites.
This paper analyses the possibility that the anomaly presents a unique opportunity to study a possible variation in the value of the Gravitation Constant G throughout the universe.
1) INTRODUCTION:
It is interesting to note the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’ is an observed deviation from predicted decelerations of the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft after they passed about 20 astronomical units (13×109 km) on their trajectories out of the Solar System. This has been explained by Herb Rose (1) as:
“The apparent change in velocity of the pioneer and other satellites after they leave our solar system is not from a change in their energy (where does the energy go or come from?) but the changing of the speed of the radio (electromagnetic waves) they are transmitting in the different electric and magnetic fields outside our solar system. As the satellites travelled through the diminishing strength of the fields in our solar system this was interpreted as greater distance. Once they left these fields emitted by the sun and entered the fields of a neighbouring system their radio signals experience a shift similar to the red and blue shift of light from distant stars. The anomaly is not a result of a change in speed of the satellites but a change in the speed of the radio waves they use to communicate with us.”
And by NASA (2) as:
“The unexpected slowing of NASA’s Pioneer 10 (P10) and 11 (P11) spacecraft – the so-called “Pioneer Anomaly” – turns out to be due to the slight, but detectable effect of heat pushing back on the spacecraft, according to a recent paper. The heat emanates from electrical current flowing through instruments and the thermoelectric power supply. The results were published on June 12 in the journal Physical Review Letters. “The effect is something like when you’re driving a car and the photons from your headlights are pushing you backward,” said Slava Turyshev, the paper’s lead author at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “It is very subtle.”
Launched in 1972 and 1973, Pioneer 10 and 11 are on an outward trajectory from our sun. In the early 1980s, navigators saw a deceleration on the two spacecraft, in the direction back toward the sun, as the two spacecraft were approaching Saturn. They dismissed it as the effect of dribbles of leftover propellant still in the fuel lines after controllers had cut off the propellant. But by 1998, as the spacecraft kept travelling on their journey and were over 8 billion miles (13 billion kilometers) away from the sun, a group of scientists led by John Anderson of JPL realized there was an actual deceleration of about 300 inches per day squared (0.9 nanometres per second squared, or 9E-010 m/sec/sec). They raised the possibility that this could be some new type of physics that contradicted Einstein’s general theory of relativity.”
And,
“They saw that what was happening to Pioneer wasn’t happening to other spacecraft, mostly because of the way the spacecraft were built. For example, the Voyager spacecraft are less sensitive to the effect seen on Pioneer because its thrusters align it along three axes, whereas the Pioneer spacecraft rely on spinning to stay stable.
With all the data newly available, Turyshev and colleagues were able to calculate the heat put out by the electrical subsystems and the decay of plutonium in the Pioneer power sources, which matched the anomalous acceleration seen on both Pioneers.”
This raises the question. Why would the heat emissions be directional and pointed in the direction of travel? EM communication transmissions directed back towards Earth should have an accelerating effect?
Despite the technical differences between to the two types of satellite craft (Voyager and Pioneer), it is worth considering if a variation in the value of G might provide another explanation to the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’.
2) AN UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY:
The Pioneer Anomaly provides a unique opportunity to review whether Newton’s gravitational constant G only applies to the Solar System, or might G have a different value beyond the Solar System (say G’)?
Figure 1, originally appeared in the “Big Bang or Steady State?” paper (3) and depicts the location of the Solar System in relation to our largest and closest black hole at AO620-00/ V616 Monoceros. This was calculated to be 3,343 light years from the Sun, and V616 was considered to be the possible source of Earth’s primary gravitation field and, is further discussed in the paper, “Natural Gravity”. (4)
Currently P10 is heading in the general direction of black hole V616 Monoceros, and P11 is heading towards black hole V1487 Aquilae.
We can concentrate on P10, and assume P11 has a similar experience, but travelling towards a different black hole.
Satellite slowing possibly occurs, because the P10 G’ factor has become slightly higher when applied in the Newton gravity equation F=G’Mm/r2. As a result, F becomes larger, and force F in this application is a decelerating force, hence the slowing satellites.
Our Gravispheres paper (5) calculates the influence variations to G can have on mass and time, as illustrated in Figure 2.
It is important to note that only the starting point in the solar system and the end point at V616 are used to construct Figure 2. The intermediate points are proportional positions between the two end points, and in reality may not follow a straight line path.
The G’ factor follows Newtonian gravity logic, and the Inverse Square Law. This produces the following exponential curve fit:
G’ = 6.67428E-011 x EXP(Y x 2.8398479E-018) m3·kg-1·s-2 (say N’)
where Y is the component distance from the Sun towards V616 in metres. In the P10 example the component distance is close to a vector pointing directly towards V616. A direct heading is therefore assumed.
The P10 distance from the Sun was close to 13 billion kilometres (1.3E+013 metres), which translates to a calculated P10 G’ value of 6.67453E-011 N’.
The G constant on Earth is quoted (6) as 6.67428E-011 N’ with an error margin of [15], so calculated P10 G’ is above the high field error value of 6.67443E-011 N’.
The NASA document reports that P10 satellite showed a slowing anomaly of 9E-010 m/sec2 which is a comparable scale to P10 G’ calculated value of 6.67453E-011 N’. This is relevant as variations to the value of G’ are directly related to deceleration, because of the Force = Mass times Acceleration relationship.
The exponential curve fit calculation is one of several possible curves joining the Figure 2 end points. Figure 1 plots locations for several suspected black holes in the Milky Way, all of which add a vector component to the gravity strength of V616, therefore it is unsurprising that the satellite slowing value, and the P10 G’ calculated value, are not identical. Satellites heading at right angles to a major black hole are not expected to experience noticeable changes to G.
If P10 G’ data is a point on the exponential curve distribution towards V616, at R2 = 0.99935, the value for G’ is:
G’ = 2.4508E-010 x EXP(Y x 2.7987E-018) N’
The Pioneer satellites will continue to slow while the G vector points towards the Sun, but will start to accelerate again when the G vector direction turns towards V616.
3) MEASURING G:
It is noted there is considerable uncertainty in measuring the value of G in a repeatable form as discussed at (7).
“Torsion balances and torsion pendulums, both inspired by the original Cavendish experiment, continue to lead the way in measurements of G, outpacing the more recent technique of atom interferometry experiments. In fact, just last week, a team from China claimed to get the most precise measurement of G yet from two independent measurements: 6.674184 × 10-11 N/kg2⋅m2 and 6.674484 × 10-11 N/kg2⋅m2, with uncertainties of just 11 parts-per-million on each.
The two methods of experimental setup published at the end of August, 2018, in Nature, which yielded the most precise (claimed) measurements of G to date. Q. Liu et al., Nature Vol. 560, 582–588 (2018)
These values may agree with one another to within two standard deviations, but they don’t agree with other measurements performed by other teams over the past 15 years, which range from as high as 6.6757 × 10-11 N/kg2⋅m2 and as low as 6.6719 × 10-11 N/kg2⋅m2. While the other fundamental constants are known to precisions of anywhere between 8 and 14 significant digits, uncertainties are anywhere from thousands to billions of times greater when it comes to G.”
This issue alone justifies discretion when considering G as a universal constant. If it is so hard to define an exact figure for G, then maybe it is not a constant, but a value that varies over time, due to natural causes.
The Gravispheres paper suggests that G be regarded as a vector force directed towards V616. While V616 is many light years away, gravity is recognised as one of two fundamental force particles which have infinite range as shown in Figure 3,(8) with the second being the force of electromagnetism.
4) CONCLUSIONS:
4.1 Gravitational attraction experienced throughout the universe appears to be a combination of the fundamental force particles of Gravity and Electromagnetism.
4.2 The “Pioneer Anomaly” may prove to be the first verified manifestation of the variable nature of the ‘Newtonian Constant’ G. This would constitute a ‘new form of physics’, and show significant impact on astrophysics.
4.3 The space distribution for the value of G appears to be a complicated array of vectors associated with black hole influences, relative to their size and distance.
4.4 The Pioneer satellites will continue to slow while the G vector points towards the Sun, but will start to accelerate again when the G vector direction turns towards V616.
5) REFERENCES:
- https://principia-scientific.com/light-momentum-in-gravispheres/#comment-24393
- https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/pioneer_anomaly.html
- http://www.bosmin.com/PSL/BigBangOrSteadyState.pdf
- http://www.bosmin.com/PSL/InterstellarGravity.pdf
- https://principia-scientific.com/publications/PROM/PROM-Beatty-Gravispheres.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_constant
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/06/scientists-admit-embarrassingly-we-dont-know-how-strong-the-force-of-gravity-is/#4da2dd5b2c3e
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/3012_elegant_02.html
- http://www.bosmin.com/PSL/PioneerAnomaly.pdf
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
G was a fudge factor created by Newton to give a source for his force of gravity. If you need to create fudge factors for fudge factors it is time to look at the original formula. There is nothing other than G that connects gravity to mass. Gravity is a function of energy (V^2) not mass and there are no black holes. People are attracted to black holes and quantum physics because they have such bizarre properties they offer an excuse for any anomalous behavior observed in reality that isn’t explained by theory.
Has anyone come up with an explanation on how asteroids can orbit other asteroids if gravity is a result of mass?
Herb
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jerry krause
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Hi Robert,
What we have here is the failure of you, Herb, and many scientists to appreciate the truth about which Newton wrote in the beginning of his preface to The Principlia. Because of the possibility that few of you have never read Motte’s English translation of Newton’s Latin, I will review what Motte translated.
“Since the ancients (as we are told by Pappus), made great account of the science of mechanics in the investigation of natural things; and the moderns laying aside substantial forms and occult qualities, have endeavoured to subject the phænomena of nature to the laws of mathematics, I have in this treatise cultivated mathematics so far as it regards philosophy. The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration; and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is do distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic; and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry if founded, belongs to the mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires the learner should be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems maybe be solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems, but not geometrical problems. The solution of these problems required from mechanics; and by geometry the use of them, when so solved, is shown; and it is the glory of geometry that from these few principles, brought from without, it is able to produce so many things. Therefore geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and is nothing but that part of universal mechanics which accurately proposes and demonstrates the art of measuring. But since the manual arts are chiefly conversant in the moving of bodies, it comes to pass that geometry is commonly referred to their magnitudes and mechanics to their motion. In this sense rational mechanics will be the science of motions resulting from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated. This pare of mechanics was cultivated by the ancients in the five powers which relate to manual arts, who considered gravity (it not being manual power, no otherwise than as it moved weights by those powers. Our design not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject not manual but natural powers, we consider chiefly these things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic forces, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist of this—from the phænomena of motion to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phænomena … ” At this point Newton goes on to describe what topics a reader will find in the three books of his treatise.
Each reader of these words must construct his/her own understanding of what Newton wrote. While I must admit I do not claim to completely understand what Newton intended by his words, I can briefly summarize what I claim to understand.
There is mathematics and there is science. Mathematics is absolutely accurate as rationally reasoned and science (mechanics) cannot be rationally reasoned, as mathematics is, because it (science) is based upon actual measurements which cannot be measured with absolute accuracy.
Robert (Herb, NASA, others), you seem to believe that absolutely accurate measurements are practically possible. Newton clearly wrote that such is not possible. Therefore, relative to the “The ‘Pioneer Anomaly” you are rationally reasoning about nonsense as you pretend that there is no limit to the precision of the measurements upon which you are trying to ‘rationally’ reason.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
Even though Newtown was an acknowledged genius and famous scientist/philosopher his lectures were sparsely attended because nobody understood what he was talking about. If mathematics is absolutely accurate please give me the value of pi.
You have not responded to the experimentI proposed. I expect this is because you know what the results will be and believe that by ignoring the contradiction it poses to your beliefs it will disappear. A scientist knows that what he believes is wrong and tries to fix it. A non-scientist thinks that what he believes is true and tries to defend it. What happened to your great faith in evidence?
Have a good day,
Herb
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jerry krause
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Hi Herb,
I expect your point about the value of pi is that the number of its digits after the decimal point which has been calculated by mathematicians is not infinite. But the number of numbers after the decimal point are far greater than the ratio of the diameter to the circumference could be determined by drawing circles and right lines.
However, from the original 56 holes of Stonehenge, which are somewhat regularly spaced in an approximate circle, the ratio of the circumference’s length, in terms of a most common regular spacing between holes, to its diameter’s length,as measured with the same most common spacing, can used to approximate the experimental value of pi to a value of maybe 3.14 or at least 3.1 (little more than 3). The arrangement of these 56 holes of Stonehenge is empirical evidence that these prehistoric people, who dug these holes, likely knew a little practical Geometry.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Robert Beatty
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Herb,
“there are no black holes” This seems pretty straight forward, why were you unable to make a selection on PSI article https://principia-scientific.com/the-black-hole-conundrum-real-or-imagined/#comments
(I note Jerry has also been ambivalent on that issue?)
You have brought up twin asteroids on a few occasions. The last time I responded to you with a video clip from NASA showing two asteroids in mutual orbit. You did not reply on that occasion.
Your calculation at that time started with “There is an asteroid with a mass of 1 X 10^6 kg with an asteroid orbiting it (its mass is irrelevant).” This means you have dismissed the barycentre point between two orbiting bodies. This shortcoming prevents you ever appreciating how asteroids orbit.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
Since I don’t believe that gravity is a function of mass or that the photon exists (light is an electro magnetic wave traveling in the electric and magnet fields) I thought a selection and explanation would become more of a distraction for your poll. I do believe there are areas where light does not transmit but this is due to the strength of the electric sand magnetic fields bending light. If The magnetic and electrical fields from all the suns in a galaxy converge at the center of a galaxy how strong would the combined fields be? Strong enough to deflect the light trying to pass through It?
I didn’t respond to your image of the binary asteroid because it didn’t address the issue. According to Newton’s law In order for an object to orbit another object it must follow Newton’s formula G times M1 times M2 divided by the distance between the object squared is equal to the velocity of M2 squared times the Mass (M2) divided by the distance between the two masses. This solves to G times M1 equals V of m2 squared times the distance between the two asteroids. This is the formula Newton used to determine the mass of the sun from the velocity and distance of the planets. If you look at the images of binary asteroids you can estimate the distance and velocity of the orbiting asteroid and then determine the necessary mass of the asteroid for this to occur. If you assign an arbitrary mass to the asteroid and approximate radius of the asteroid you can get a value for its velocity squared time it distance above the asteroid. In these cases it shows that asteroids cannot orbit asteroids.
Herb
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Robert Beatty
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Jerry,
“What we have here is the failure of you, Herb, and many scientists to appreciate the truth about which Newton wrote” AND “I must admit I do not claim to completely understand what Newton intended by his words”
Me neither. What I do know is that Newton did not have access to the internet. One can only image what further great work our notable forefather scientists could have achieved, had they had access to the web, as we do.
AND “There is mathematics and there is science. Mathematics is absolutely accurate” This is a very dangerous statement. Pi is exactly 22/7 If you try to interpret that as a decimal amount, you finish up extrapolating maths to where your brain cannot follow.
A similar situation occurs with the Schwarzschild radius. SR is very useful for determining the deflection a particle will experience when it passes a high gravitation field. If you mathematically extrapolate that calculation to include the deflection experienced when the particle is captured by that field, or travels directly towards the field, your calculation shows the radius of curvature diminishes to the point where it cannot exist. Conclusion becomes: black holes cannot exist. A fraught conclusion – hence the danger of assuming mathematics is absolutely accurate.
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Herb Rose
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Hi again Robert.
The value of pi is not exactly 22/7. In any division there will be a repetition of numbers while with pi no such repetition is observed. Pi is not a result of division.
Herb
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