Paper: astro-ph/0506330
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 01:26:11 GMT (309kb)

Title: Pioneer Anomaly and the Kuiper Belt mass distribution

Authors: O. Bertolami and P. Vieira
Comments: Plain latex; 12 figures
Report-no: DF/IST-4.2005
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Pioneer 10 and 11 were the first probes sent to study the outer planets of
the Solar System and Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to leave the Solar
System. Besides their already epic journeys, Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft were
subjected to an unaccounted effect interpreted as a constant acceleration
towards the Sun, the so-called Pioneer anomaly. One of the possibilities put
foward for explaining the Pioneer anomaly is the gravitational acceleration of
the Kuiper Belt. In this work we examine this hypothesis for various models for
the Kuiper Belt mass distribution. We find that the gravitational effect due to
Kuiper Belt cannot account the Pioneer anomaly.Our conclusions suggest that
only through a mission, the Pioneer anomaly can be confirmed and further
investigated. This mission turns out to be also a quite interesting probe to
study the mass distribution of the Kuiper Belt.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0506330 , 309kb)