can this be related to the problem of dark matter?
As far as I understand it dark matter is a problem of a large amount of gravitation that is unexplained. The article implies that something similar might be at work here.
I'm a layman on this subject, so if anybody knows anything about this it would be interesting to hear.
A quick search on http://arxiv.org for 'spacecraft anomaly' shows ~50 papers - mostly about the Pioneer anomaly. Some do suggest dark matter as the cause.
As far as I understand, dark matter and dark energy are capable of being explained by us botching our calculations.
You see time in the universe is predicted on an archaic model of the universe where density is equal; this doesn't take into account galaxies or the huge voids that exist. This is inherently wrong and stupidly so as time is controlled by gravity; time around a black hole is so, so, SO far away from time in flat space. 1 billion years near the event horizon of a black hole can be equivalent to a mere second on Earth.
The time difference between a probe between planets and the time we see on Earth is so small I expect no one thinks of it. This is why the archaic model usually works because relativistic effects are exponential. However, even 0.00001 of a second has an effect on what we see, this might be negligable for the probes, but then it might now. The effect could be big enough to predict this, as it's big enough that all dark energy in the universe doesn't exist when this effect is accounted for.
Supernova explosions tell us the universe is much larger than it really is, because we don't calculate that there are huge god damn hills in between us. We live in a 'valley' called the milky way, and we live in a little dip in that called the Sol system. Between us and a distant supernova are 'hills' of empty space and numerous other valleys and hills. It does in fact take 10 billion years for the light to get to us from one, however it doesn't travel 10 billion light years due to these 'valleys' in time.
This is a fundamental prediction of general relativity, and one scientists don't account for. It's pure schmuckery assuming you can average out the differences. If there was nothing between us and a distant supernova explosion it would take (IIRC) only 6 billion years to get here and it would travel 6 billion light years, with things in between it travels slightly further but takes a hell of a lot longer to get here.
If this effect happens in our solar system too, and I don't see why it shouldn't, then it could account for this acceleration. However, it won't be at the 38% predicted for the universe model, but certainly time will deviate through our solar system.
Hopefully this makes sense to people other than me...
Essentially, yes. Dark matter/energy (or the alternatives, like I 'explain' above) are likely the cause, even if they're not on the percieved scale of the universe. Dark matter seems to populate the outer edges of galaxies more than the interior, perhaps our solar systems position only gets a 'light touching' of the WIMP particles or whatever.
As far as I understand it dark matter is a problem of a large amount of gravitation that is unexplained. The article implies that something similar might be at work here.
I'm a layman on this subject, so if anybody knows anything about this it would be interesting to hear.