Astrophysicist Slava Turyshev has explained away decades of exotic speculation over the Pioneer anomaly, the puzzling slowdown of two NASA probes
What drew you to try to explain the anomaly, the unexpected slowing of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that emerged in the 1980s?
The whole solar system is a lab which I use to test general relativity. We know the solar system obeys all laws given to us by Einstein and Newton. With the Pioneer anomaly, suddenly we saw a very unusual tiny force that fell right in between Newton's gravity and Einstein's general relativity. That prompted people to think that maybe the spacecraft was sensing the presence of a new type of physics. It was either a major discovery or a puzzle that, in the solving, would help us build better craft to study gravity. It was a win-win situation for me.