matter made of space not energy?

[Tormod]

Cassini should fit the bill, then, having used Earth, Venus (twice), and Jupiter for its ride to Saturn.

[WebFeet]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Cassini should fit the bill, then, having used Earth, Venus (twice), and Jupiter for its ride to Saturn.

Better still, use the two Pioneer probes, 10 and 11, that were launched in the early seventies. Each of these probes is heading in virtually the oppisite direction, so any results can be verified.

The probes are currently 1/4 million miles short of where they should be.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_041018.html

[Tormod]

The Pioneer anomaly is being studied of course and there is as of yet no explanation. According to this paper http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0205059 the most likely cause is the spacecraft design itself.

It would be difficult to use the Pioneer spacecraft for studies now since it is difficult to pinpoint their eact position to the level you would need to test your photon theory.

I hope there is some other way to test your theory - it's not often that spacecraft is sent on planet hopping missions like these, and AFAIK not a single one is being planned at the moment (at least none has left the drawing board)... ESA is currently focusing on Venus and Mercury (and Mars, of course), and NASA might eventually launch their Pluto mission but who knows when.

[WebFeet]

Originally Posted by Tormod

It would be difficult to use the Pioneer spacecraft for studies now since it is difficult to pinpoint their eact position to the level you would need to test your photon theory.

The same would probably be said for any deep space probe. There is always going to be a degree of inaccuracy. Unfortunately, the mission would have to be over a considerable distance to get large enough results.

AFAIK all the tests and checks that have been carried out on the Pioneer spacecraft have failed to come up with anything that can account for the descepancy.

They've known of the discrepency with Pioneer for over a decade, so although exact positioning now may be difficult, using the historical figures from the point it was first noticed would provide a greater degree of accuracy.