A mysterious phenomenon that has troubled NASA since 1990

In 1990, one of NASA spacecraftGalileo, became the first in a long list of vehicles marked by an unexplained phenomenon. A change in acceleration that the company’s scientists had not predicted and could not understand when it happened. It was christened as flight anomalythinking it would never happen again. However, the same effect has affected many NASA spacecraft since then, and no one knows why.

This NASA spacecraft phenomenon appears to be related to another, much better described phenomenon called gravity assist. In fact, this is not an accident, but a necessity. Ships use the gravitational pull of large celestial objects, such as planets, to get to their destination using less fuel.

This has enabled NASA and other companies’ spacecraft to fly great distances. But this jolt is not random. can be predicted long before the launch. So when unexpected changes occur in the resulting acceleration, all the predictions go awry. This usually doesn’t cause big problems, but it is annoying. It is important to find the cause, but so far they have not succeeded.

NASA Space Shuttle Push

All bodies exert a gravitational attraction on the objects around them. This attraction is proportional to its mass. Therefore, the state of objects here on Earth is minorBut there is no information about large celestial objects.

For this reason, spacecraft from NASA and other companies perform a maneuver known as gravity assist, which uses the gravitational energy of nearby bodies to make a change in your trajectoryThroughout history, many NASA spacecraft have taken advantage of this phenomenon.

In an article published in IFScience They give several examples. Voyagers 1 and 2 Jupiter brought them to Saturn. The latter also took advantage of a push from Saturn, and then another push from Uranus, to go beyond Neptune. Later, Galileo He turned to Venus and twice as much to Earth for help to reach his goal, located on Jupiter. Cassini That changed things a bit. It accelerated twice on Venus, once on Earth, and once on Jupiter to fly to Saturn, to name a few.

This acceleration, caused by gravity, can be accurately calculated. However, in 1990, Galileo acquired an unexplained acceleration. It could have been something specific, but the situation has been repeated with several NASA and ESA spacecraft. Specifically NEAR, Cassini, Rosetta and MESSENGERThere is a phenomenon that is as inexplicable as it is unpredictable that affects ships. But what is it?

Possible hypotheses

When it seemed like something concrete, it was assumed that the phenomenon would probably be the result of a spacecraft error. something systematic. But why on some NASA ships and not on others?

It was also suggested that this could be a consequence of dark matter around the planets the ships were traveling on. However, other ships heading to the same planets did not experience this anomaly. Therefore, some astronomers believe that it could be a case of new physics. That is, a phenomenon that cannot be explained. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. This would not mean that he was wrong, but it would mean that perhaps there are other laws of physics that have not yet been discovered that affect kick by means of which planets set in motion the ships around them.

That would be exciting and groundbreaking. But there are scientists who remember that sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. What if it’s something so insignificant that you’ve walked past it hundreds of times without noticing? They’ll have to investigate further to find out. Fortunately, other than the mental conundrum it presents, it doesn’t seem to pose a threat to the agency’s missions at this point.