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Tue 22 Jan, 2008 10:47 am
A Possible Answer to Flyby Anomalies
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This isn't an isolated case. During Earth flybys by the space probes NEAR, Cassini-Huygens and Rosetta, all experienced a unexplained boosts of 13 mm/s, 0.11 mm/s and 2 mm/s respectively. Once technical faults, observational errors, radiation pressure, magnetic instabilities and electrical charge build-up could be ruled out, focus is beginning to turn to more exotic explanations.
A recent study by Magic McCulloch suggests that "Unruh radiation" may be the culprit. The Unruh effect, put simply, suggests that accelerating bodies experience a type of electromagnetic radiation. At very low acceleration, the wavelength emitted will be so large that a whole wavelength will be longer than the dimensions of the Universe (otherwise known as the Hubble Distance). Low acceleration would therefore generate waves that have no effect on the body. However, should the accelerating body (i.e. Galileo getting accelerated by Earth's gravity during the 1990 flyby) slowly exceed an acceleration threshold, the Unruh radiation will decrease in wavelength (smaller than the Hubble Distance), causing a tiny, but measurable "boost" to its increasing velocity.
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A read about this a few years ago. It's very interesting, but I haven't heard much about it since it was first noticed.
Unexplained acceleration seems to be a common theme, whether it be distant probes, or the Universe itself.
Why is it that people who discover stuff like this are named Unruh, and not Smith. Smith Radiation would be so much easier to understand.
Has anyone come up with any different theories for why these probes are speeding up?
Is this a temporary speed-up or does it persist past the planet?
If it's just a temporary boost, it seems like it would simply be the same effect observed when two balls roll along curved paths from one point to another, and the one whose curve dips lower gets to the end faster.