Paper (*cross-listing*): gr-qc/0601055
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:11:23 GMT (36kb)

Title: What do the orbital motions of the outer planets of the Solar System
tell us about the Pioneer Anomaly?

Authors: Lorenzo Iorio

Comments: Latex2e, 12 pages, 3 tables, 4 figures

Subj-class: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology; Space Physics
\\
In this paper we investigate the effects that an anomalous acceleration as
that experienced by the Pioneer spacecraft after they passed the 20 AU
threshold would induce on the orbital motions of the Solar System planets
placed at heliocentric distances of 20 AU or larger as Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto. It turns out that such an acceleration, with a magnitude of about 8 X
10^-10 m s^-2, would affect their orbits with secular and short-period signals
large enough to be detected with the present-day level of accuracy in orbit
determination. The absence of such anomalous signatures in the latest data
analyses rules out the possibility that in the region 20-40 AU of the Solar
System an anomalous force field inducing a constant and radial acceleration of
that size is present.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0601055 , 36kb)