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More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies

ZonkerWilliam recommends a bulletin from the American Institute of Physics, which discusses a study noting that recent spacecraft, such as NEAR, appear to display velocity anomalies much like those seen in Pioneer 10 (which were observed beginning ten years ago). The anomalies amount to up to 13 mm/sec., with a measurement accuracy of 0.1 mm/sec. Quoting: "A new look at the trajectories for various spacecraft as they fly past the Earth finds in each case a tiny amount of surplus velocity. For craft that pursue a path mostly symmetrical with respect to the equator, the effect is minimal. For craft that pursue a more unsymmetrical path, the effect is larger."

8 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. spooky by superdana · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anyone else feel like they just read the first console in an old Bungie game? We should probably be arming ourselves.

  2. Good excuse by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sorry officer; I was experiencing a velocity anomaly.

  3. well duh by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    gravitons display a bias for polar rather than equatorial output. this was the basis for the graviton engine that first bought man...

    oh shit, forgot what time line was in, you guys aren't supposed to discover this until 2039. dang it, screwed up again. i'll have to shut this time line down...

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  4. Message from your gods by rbarreira · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're sorry about the bugs you've been observing lately. The latest anomalies are due to bug #14310, a hardware glitch much like those present in your own Pentium processors.

    We're trying as hard as we can to mitigate this issue, primarily by avoiding the use of floating point calculations in our physics engine. In the meantime, we're manually changing your physics books so that you'll be able to calculate the ship's movement correctly. In one day, you'll have no memory that this incident ever happened, so do not worry.

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  5. Re:An appropos quote by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought it was "Here, hold my beer."

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  6. I know what it is! by kiick · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once you leave Earth for a while, particularly if you travel far, you realize that it doesn't suck quite as much as you thought.

    A similar phenomenon occurs when traveling outside of the U.S.

  7. Re:Link: Explanation with physics equations includ by ergon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here is the summary from the article:

    If a large volume of empty space surrounds the matter of the cosmos, so that the cosmos can have a centre of mass, then the matter is in a deep gravitational potential 'well'. If space is expanding and spreading the matter outward, then the depth of the well is decreasing. According to general relativity, especially a new solution of Einstein's equations derived in the Appendix (which also deals with Birkhoff's theorem), the decreasing depth continuously shortens 'radar' distances within the well, causing the observed apparent acceleration. The magnitude of the anomalous acceleration implies the bottom of the potential well has not yet risen very far above the critical depth for gravitational time dilation. Thus the Pioneer effect supports the essentials of several creationist cosmologies: a centre of mass, expansion of space and recent time dilation. Big bang theorists, whose cosmology does not have a centre of mass, cannot use this explanation.

  8. Re:I mean... by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 5, Funny

    Antisymmetric is when you hate Jews right?