Comments on: Flyby Anomalies Explained?

By: General Zod

General Zod — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:43:29 +0000

All branches of physics, I think, apply to all things all the time. It's just a matter of how much you want to nit pick.

By: HolyAvengerOne

HolyAvengerOne — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:06:58 +0000

"Is the transverse Doppler effect related to frame dragging?"

Nope. Not the same branch of physics there.

By: RetardedFishFrog

RetardedFishFrog — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:45:29 +0000

Is the transverse Doppler effect related to frame dragging?

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:49:48 +0000

Well, at least that's 1 mystery solved.

By: JamesB

JamesB — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 09:10:03 +0000

PS- it's like a guy going to a biker bar and complaining about all the leather…

By: JamesB

JamesB — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 09:03:57 +0000

Carl-

Why would anyone who COULD understand the math come to this kind of website for this kind of news? They dumb it down for us so we don't need to understand the math.

And knowing that something is wrong doesn't imply that you know the right answer yourself. Somethings are just counterintuitive or outright ridiculous at the most cursory glance ("dark energy" for one)!!

I personally think that it'll be something small like this which will eventually undermine our understanding of cosmology. And while I also think it'll be a new branch of physics you could describe as "dimensional physics" that'll be needed, it's up to the guys who DO understand the math to work out the details!!

By: Carl

Carl — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:09:14 +0000

What I love most about this story (actually, this whole site) is the comments by people who think they have a better handle on this than actual physicists, especially the ones who throw out some plausible sounding jargon without any actual calculations to back up their guesses. Hilarious.

By: Steven

Steven — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:02:02 +0000

For Graham…
"Does this still leave us with the Pioneer anomaly?"

Yes it does, but I think that has been expalined by leaking heat form the RTG's.

Still all in all I was hoping for mirco wormholes or something crazy.

By: WooferHound

WooferHound — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:38:22 +0000

These spacecraft are not just passing the Earth on their flybys, they are flying by the Earth/Moon system. so there is combined mass of these two put together. Also the Moon will have different effects on the spacecraft depending on the location of the Moon in it's orbit around the Earth.

By: watchful stone guardian

watchful stone guardian — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:22:29 +0000

or 46.8 metres per hour (0.047 km/h)

By: troy

troy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:32:11 +0000

"13 millimeters per second more than it should have" That calculates to .03 mph. The precission in measurements and calculations are impressive.

By: jerry

jerry — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:58:11 +0000

It is silly to suggest that there is a special relativity explanation when general relativity fails. Special relativity is applicable in linear systems only. Even if there is a term missing from the GR equations; such as a failure to properly account for the angular momentum of the earth, the effect would be small relative to the measured errors. If there is an 'unaccounted for' property of GR; that would be new physics, not SR.

By: BadGuy1081

BadGuy1081 — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:23:01 +0000

gravity field drag? if you orbit with the spin you pick up more velocity?

By: RL

RL — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:29:20 +0000

But, of course! (said with my bad fake French accent). It would be interesting to hear JPLs reaction. I hope someone puts this to a test.

By: Mike McCulloch

Mike McCulloch — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:13:23 +0000

I do not think the flyby anomalies can be any sort of Doppler effect, because, although they are seen in the Doppler data as mentioned, they are also present in the ranging data. This implies it is not just a frequency shift, but a real velocity and position anomaly.

By: Nigel

Nigel — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:26:58 +0000

On the transverse Doppler effect, I have never been able to settle for a purely radial motion for the large scale, cosmological, space-induced motion of galaxies. How big a transverse velocity is required (e.g. for quasars) before this starts to measurably affect our interpretations of (space-induced) red-shift?

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:57:29 +0000

Does this still leave us with the Pioneer anomaly?

By: Astrofiend

Astrofiend — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:35:22 +0000

Beautiful. Although it was always likely to be a result of something like this, it's fantastically ironic to see that an effect that some thought may occur as a result of incomplete or new physics is quite likely in fact to actually be a highly exacting confirmation of established theories of physics. These sort of complexities can be easily overlooked, even by top brains.

The commenter 'w. scott' almost hit it on the head in his comment on the 'Unruh effect' link posted in this article. Among other things, he said "…we could be missing a scalar component of acceleration which affects the flow of time at far lower speeds. After all, we are talking about passing by a large, spinning gravity well." and that "Good old fashioned Relativity might just be all we need to explain this. It only means that there's a factor that science doesn't account for which SHOULD be accounted for."

Not quite on the money, but insightful and prescient none-the-less for a throwaway comment.