One of my favorite scientific anomalies — why spacecraft speed up at the edge of the solar system — may have been explained.
For quite some time, the physics community has been baffled by subtle anomalies in the trajectories of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. If no “mundane” effect (e.g. propulsion from a gas leak, or radiation pressure, or collisions with space dust) can be found to explain it, then serious questions would have to be asked about whether our understanding of gravity is incomplete. This paper, however, claims to explain the anomalous acceleration in terms of thermal radiation.
Source: Unqualified Offerings, Mean scientists say no gravitational anomaly in outer solar system, referring to Modelling the reflective thermal contribution to the acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft.
My only remaining hope that there might actually be a singularity is the date of the paper.
