Pioneer Anomaly

A fascinating article from The Planetary Society's website, written by several scientists from JPL and Los Alamos, about the "Pioneer Anomaly," an unexplained acceleration effect recorded by the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes.

It's entirely possible, in my humble opinion, that this "anomaly" represents the next level of cosmological model shift, similar to the shift from Keplerian to Newtonian physics, or even Newtonian to Einsteinian. Certainly it emphasizes something which can never be over-emphasized: it's a big universe, and even our most basic assumptions and "laws" may be completely wrong. Good science accepts that point as a basic tenet, and works within it. Bad science resists that principle, and tries to force the universe to fit its preconceptions; the "dark matter" stupidity which has infected large portions of the astronomical community is an example of bad science.

Fortunately these folks working on the Pioneer Anomaly give every appearance of being good scientists. They are not discounting anything--even the disturbing possibility of having to re-write Newtonian laws.