NASA Reports on A Major New Solar Gravity Anomaly:
Another Confirmation of Hyperdimensional Physics
via a Changing "Speed of Light?"
By Richard C. Hoagland
1998 The Enterprise MissionOn September 12, 1998 the distinguished British science magazine, "New Scientist" reported an amazing bit of news: NASA tracking of several outer solar system spacecraft -- the 2 Pioneers, together with the Ulysses and Galileo missions -- were all exhibiting "anomalous orbital behavior" ... indicating a greater solar gravitational attraction than current physics permits. The article, titled "If the Force is With Them ...", went on to detail some of the obvious tests which the NASA team, led by an old friend, Dr. John Anderson, using JPL's "Deep Space Network" (NASA's tracking division of its west coast interplanetary center), had applied to the anomalous spacecraft tracking data, in an effort to explain the increasingly strange trajectory results (below).
The NASA tests, reported in detail in the technical paper written by the team for Phys. Rev. Lett., started by removing the obvious "Doppler effects" on the tracking signals caused by the rotating Earth, as well as its own orbital revolution around the Sun. The next step involved modeling potential non-gravitational forces on the spacecraft, such as "fuel leaks in the on-board attitude control systems," which could cause spurious "jetting" effects. This was followed by a search for "unmodeled" gravitational attractions, created by currently unknown asteroids; such objects could affect the tracking data by literally "dragging" the spacecraft backwards toward the Sun. Eventually, there was even an investigation into potentially strange electromagnetic interactions in the Sun's "corona" that could affect either the radio waves between the spacecraft and the Earth, or create excess "plasma drag" on the spacecraft themselves, thereby slowing them slightly in their trajectories away from the center of the solar system.
Ultimately, none of these "mundane" explanations have satisfied the JPL tracking observations; the NASA team has been left with a genuine "gravity anomaly" -- the spacecraft all seem to be slightly closer to the sun than expected at this time, and slowing down slightly faster than expected ... based on current gravity models and currently accepted physics.
This inexplicable effect thus indicates a major -- and still totally mysterious -- "physical solar system anomaly" ... apparently becoming detectable in the JPL DSN tracking data about 10 years ago.
To proponents of the Hyperdimensional Physics Model, these remarkable NASA tracking data open up a string of equally extraordinary possibilities. The fact that the NASA scientists believe the observations indicate an increasing solar gravity is in direct conflict with several major laboratory experiments, conducted in the same time period, all indicating an equally remarkable, but weakening "gravitational constant" (G) -- at least on Earth.
This direct conflict between two recently reported, but totally separate "gravity anomalies" led us to focus on the source of NASA's curious report:
Radio tracking of the outer solar system spacecraft.
Unlike the laboratory dataa referenced earlier -- which measures changing "G" directly -- the JPL observations were of necessity "remote": conducted only via the long-distance yardstick of radio telemetry stretched between the NASA ground antennas (right) and the very distant spacecraft. That key difference -- the "radio link" itself -- somehow seemed the clue ...
Then, in a flash, the problem suddenly resolved:
What if it wasn't the solar gravitational field that has subtly been changing since 1987, but--
"C" ... the speed of light itself!?
Radio telemetry travels at the same velocity as light. If C is somehow changing simultaneously throughout the solar system, then radio signals sent to distant spacecraft would obviously arrive and return sooner than expected -- making all spacecraft suddenly appear slightly closer to the Sun than otherwise predicted! This key observation would inevitably translate in the JPL computer models as an "increased gravitational attraction from the Sun ...": because spacecraft apparently closer than expected (to the computers) must be slowing faster than predicted ... because a higher signal speed (the "speed of light") is literally not in the computer!
Paradox resolved.
This "correction" to the NASA/JPL announcement, in one stroke, not only brings the changing solar gravitational field into line with other previously reported laboratory data (resulting in a solar field that is also actually decreasing) ... it also immediately confirms another essential prediction of the Hyperdimensional Model:
If "G" decreases in the solar system, then the "speed of light" -- C -- must inevitably, simultaneously increase -- because both (in the HD Model) are inversely connected, through Maxwell's "changing scalar potentials" of the permitivity and permeability of space, caused by slowly changing outer planet configurations.
Astonishingly, this new NASA evidence for a variable "speed of light" (once properly interpreted!) is not unique.
A compliation of recent scientific literature on the subject by Lambert Dolphin (right), former physicist at the Stanford Research Institute, reveals an historical body of published and unpublished laboratory and astronomical evidence strongly supporting such a radical interpretation -- directly contradicting what is taught regarding the "inviolability of C" in current textbooks. These assembled experiments and scientific papers form an additional, persuasive, independent argument for the basic tenents of the HD Model -- that current scientific "constants" are not truly constant after all ... and that even that most "sacred constant" -- "C" -- must vary over time.
NASA itself has now, apparently, inadvertently confirmed this critical prediction of the Model.
Stay tuned!
