{"title":"The Pioneer Anomaly","authors":"Slava G. Turyshev, Viktor T. Toth","doi":"10.12942/lrr-2010-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Radio-metric Doppler tracking data received from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft from heliocentric distances of 20–70 AU has consistently indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, blue-shifted frequency drift uniformly changing with a rate of ~ 6 × 10<sup>?9</sup> Hz/s. Ultimately, the drift was interpreted as a constant sunward deceleration of each particular spacecraft at the level of <i>a</i><sub><i>P</i></sub> = (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10<sup>?10</sup> m/s<sup>2</sup>. This apparent violation of the Newton’s gravitational inverse-square law has become known as the Pioneer anomaly; the nature of this anomaly remains unexplained. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of the physical properties of the anomaly and the conditions that led to its detection and characterization. We review various mechanisms proposed to explain the anomaly and discuss the current state of efforts to determine its nature. A comprehensive new investigation of the anomalous behavior of the two Pioneers has begun recently. The new efforts rely on the much-extended set of radio-metric Doppler data for both spacecraft in conjunction with the newly available complete record of their telemetry files and a large archive of original project documentation. As the new study is yet to report its findings, this review provides the necessary background for the new results to appear in the near future. In particular, we provide a significant amount of information on the design, operations and behavior of the two Pioneers during their entire missions, including descriptions of various data formats and techniques used for their navigation and radio-science data analysis. As most of this information was recovered relatively recently, it was not used in the previous studies of the Pioneer anomaly, but it is critical for the new investigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":686,"journal":{"name":"Living Reviews in Relativity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":26.3000,"publicationDate":"2010-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.12942/lrr-2010-4","citationCount":"148","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Living Reviews in Relativity","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrr-2010-4","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PHYSICS, PARTICLES & FIELDS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 148
Abstract
Radio-metric Doppler tracking data received from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft from heliocentric distances of 20–70 AU has consistently indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, blue-shifted frequency drift uniformly changing with a rate of ~ 6 × 10?9 Hz/s. Ultimately, the drift was interpreted as a constant sunward deceleration of each particular spacecraft at the level of aP = (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10?10 m/s2. This apparent violation of the Newton’s gravitational inverse-square law has become known as the Pioneer anomaly; the nature of this anomaly remains unexplained. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of the physical properties of the anomaly and the conditions that led to its detection and characterization. We review various mechanisms proposed to explain the anomaly and discuss the current state of efforts to determine its nature. A comprehensive new investigation of the anomalous behavior of the two Pioneers has begun recently. The new efforts rely on the much-extended set of radio-metric Doppler data for both spacecraft in conjunction with the newly available complete record of their telemetry files and a large archive of original project documentation. As the new study is yet to report its findings, this review provides the necessary background for the new results to appear in the near future. In particular, we provide a significant amount of information on the design, operations and behavior of the two Pioneers during their entire missions, including descriptions of various data formats and techniques used for their navigation and radio-science data analysis. As most of this information was recovered relatively recently, it was not used in the previous studies of the Pioneer anomaly, but it is critical for the new investigation.
期刊介绍:
Living Reviews in Relativity is a peer-reviewed, platinum open-access journal that publishes reviews of research across all areas of relativity. Directed towards the scientific community at or above the graduate-student level, articles are solicited from leading authorities and provide critical assessments of current research. They offer annotated insights into key literature and describe available resources, maintaining an up-to-date suite of high-quality reviews, thus embodying the "living" aspect of the journal's title.
Serving as a valuable tool for the scientific community, Living Reviews in Relativity is often the first stop for researchers seeking information on current work in relativity. Written by experts, the reviews cite, explain, and assess the most relevant resources in a given field, evaluating existing work and suggesting areas for further research.
Attracting readers from the entire relativity community, the journal is useful for graduate students conducting literature surveys, researchers seeking the latest results in unfamiliar fields, and lecturers in need of information and visual materials for presentations at all levels.