Heat 'Most Likely Cause' of Pioneer Anomaly

astroengine writes "Everything from clouds of dark matter, weird gravitational effects, alien tampering and exotic new physics have all been blamed for the 'Pioneer Anomaly' — the tiny, inexplicable sun-ward acceleration acting on the veteran Pioneer deep space probes. However, evidence is mounting for a more mundane explanation. Yes, it's the emission of heat from the spacecrafts' onboard radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), slowly nudging the Pioneers off course, that looks like the most likely culprit. It's unlikely that this new finding will completely silence advocates of more exotic explanations, however."

Comments

Re:d00d

[Jane Q. Public]

Mod up. I was going to say pretty much the same thing, but every time I have posted something like that I have gotten marked "troll". Go figure.