Related papers: On the anomalous acceleration in the solar system
Despite its remarkable agreement with gravity tests in the solar system, general relativity is challenged at larger scales. Large scale tests performed in the solar system by the Pioneer 10/11 probes have failed to confirm the expected…
The radiative and particulate loss of mass by the Sun, -9.13*10^-14 Solar masses per year or more causes the orbits of the planets to expand at the same rate, and their periods to lengthen at twice this rate. Unfortunately, under the…
There are at least four unexplained anomalies connected with astrometric data. Perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that when a spacecraft on a flyby trajectory approaches the Earth within 2000 km or less, it often experiences a change…
The discovery that the cosmic expansion is accelerating has been followed by an intense theoretical and experimental response in physics and astronomy. The discovery implies that our most basic notions about how gravity work are violated on…
In order to satisfy the equivalence principle, any non-conventional mechanism proposed to gravitationally explain the Pioneer anomaly, in the form in which it is presently known from the so-far analyzed Pioneer 10/11 data, cannot leave out…
In this essay we offer a comprehensible overview of the gravitational aether scenario. This is a possible extension of Einstein's theory of relativity to the quantum regime via an effective approach. Quantization of gravity usually faces…
We work out the impact that the recently determined time-dependent component of the Pioneer Anomaly (PA), interpreted as an additional exotic acceleration of gravitational origin with respect to the well known PA-like constant one, may have…
Radiometric data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts have revealed an unexplained constant acceleration of a_A = (8.74 +/- 1.33) x 10^(-10) m s^(-2) towards the Sun, also known as the Pioneer anomaly. Different groups have analyzed the…
In spite of two hundred years of considerable efforts directed towards improvement in the experimental techniques, gravitational measurements have provided unsettled results for Newton's gravitational constant G. Analysis of the published…
A decreasing gravitational constant, G, coupled with angular momentum conservation is expected to increrase a planetary semimajor axis, a, as \dot a/a=-\dot G/G. Analysis of lunar laser ranging data strongly limits such temporal variations…
Many long-range modifications of the Newtonian/Einsteinian standard laws of gravity have been proposed in the recent past to explain various celestial phenomena occurring at different scales ranging from solar system to the entire universe.…
What is the influence of cosmology (the expansion law and its acceleration, the cosmological constant...) on the dynamics and optics of a local system like the solar system, a galaxy, a cluster, a supercluster...? The answer requires the…
Experimental tests of gravity performed in the solar system show a good agreement with general relativity. The latter is however challenged by the Pioneer anomaly which might be pointing at some modification of gravity law at ranges of the…
The trajectories of test particles moving in the gravitational field of a non-spherically symmetric mass distribution become affected by the presence of multipole moments. In the case of hyperbolic trajectories, the quadrupole moment of an…
The motion of a local source inducing small oscillations in the gravitational field is investigated and shown to exhibit pure rotational kinetic energy. Should the net affect of these slow, revolving oscillations cause large-scale rotations…
The Sun's relativistic gravitational gradient accelerations of Earth and Moon, dependent on the motions of the latter bodies, act upon the system's internal angular momentum. This spin-orbit force (which plays a part in determining the…
The anomalous acceleration of Pioneer 10 is presented as a calculation using a simple optical model. The model is based on the bending of background gravity behind the Sun in the same way that light is bent by the Sun. Structures of…
Many astronomers have speculated that the solar system contains undiscovered massive planets or a distant stellar companion. The acceleration of the solar system barycenter can constrain the mass and position of the putative companion. In…
The effect of the expanding universe on planetary motion is considered to first order in the Hubble constant H. Orbital elements are shown to be unaffected, but there is a small change in the connection between planetary proper time and…
Although the Gauss-Bonnet term is a topological invariant for general relativity, it couples naturally to a quintessence scalar field, modifying gravity at solar system scales. We determine the solar system constraints due to this term by…