Curious behavior of remote spacecraft

1999/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronautika

The space probes that were launched into space 30 years ago have begun to generate great concern for NASA physicists because of their strange behavior. All probes stop faster than expected and it seems that the gravitational force they are suffering is different from what physics foresees. With the aim of calculating the speed of the Pioneer 10 space probe, the researchers discovered a symptomatic anomaly in the acceleration of the probe, since the data obtained began to move away from the expected results.

Radio signals allow to calculate the acceleration of the probe with an incalculable precision, and to understand it, the probe anomaly is 80x10-6 cm/s2; with this acceleration it would take 650 years to stop a car of 60 kilometers per hour. However, for researchers working with highly accurate data, this difference is not taken jokingly, and the researchers immediately sought the cause of this abnormality. Although it was initially thought that it could be a problem of the measurement system, data from other probes have found the same anomaly, so a concern has been generated between the NASA authorities. Perhaps, outside the solar system, the current laws of physics are not useful.