Computer Forensics to Help Solve Pioneer Mystery

Matthew Sparkes writes "Launched 35 years ago on Friday, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to reach the outer Solar System and return pictures of Jupiter, closely followed by Pioneer 11. However, the twin Pioneer spacecraft drifted off course (see number 8) by hundreds of thousands of kilometres during their three-decade mission, and NASA eventually lost contact with them. An international team of scientists, including many amatuer hobbyists, are re-analysing the tracking and telemetry data in the hope of discovering the reason."

Comments

Re:Gravity: 1/r^2.0000001???

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I've often wondered whether gravity is really exactly a one-over-r-squared phenomenon. I would think that between the curvature of space...

That's a bit like saying "I've often wondered whether or not there's a faster way to add numbers, I would think that between the invention of abaci, calculators and computers...". If you read this maybe you can catch up with the rest of the world.