As we send satellites and probes whipping around the Earth in order to gain momentum to hurl them deep into the inky void, some strange things are happening to these crafts' velocities. About a decade ago, NASA noticed that Pioneers 10 and 11 were going a bit faster than calculations assumed they would be; recently, scientists noticed that the NEAR asteroid lander was also a little zippier than expected (about 13 mm/sec) as it whizzed around us. No one's quite sure why this is, though theories abound. Math mistakes are one alleged culprit (this from the folks who helped bring you the English/metric Massacre of the Mars Climate Orbiter); previously unknown gravitational effects, or maybe new physical laws, are others.
(via Slashdot)
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